Francis Dana (June 13, 1743 - April 25, 1811) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lawyer, jurist, and statesman from
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
. He served as a delegate to the
Continental CongressThe Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution...
in 1777-1778 and 1784. He signed the
Articles of ConfederationThe Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly referred to as the Articles of Confederation, was the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June...
.
Francis was born in
Charlestown, MassachusettsCharlestown is a part of the city of Boston, Massachusetts located on a peninsula north of Boston proper. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...
, the son of lawyer Richard Dana. He was educated at
HarvardHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
where he graduated in 1762, then read law and was admitted to the bar, after which he built a successful legal practice in Boston.
Being an opponent of the British colonial policy, he became a leader of the Sons of Liberty, and was first elected to Massachusetts’s provincial (revolutionary) Congress in 1774.
Francis Dana (June 13, 1743 - April 25, 1811) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lawyer, jurist, and statesman from
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
. He served as a delegate to the
Continental CongressThe Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution...
in 1777-1778 and 1784. He signed the
Articles of ConfederationThe Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly referred to as the Articles of Confederation, was the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June...
.
Biography
Francis was born in
Charlestown, MassachusettsCharlestown is a part of the city of Boston, Massachusetts located on a peninsula north of Boston proper. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...
, the son of lawyer Richard Dana. He was educated at
HarvardHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
where he graduated in 1762, then read law and was admitted to the bar, after which he built a successful legal practice in Boston.
Being an opponent of the British colonial policy, he became a leader of the Sons of Liberty, and was first elected to Massachusetts’s provincial (revolutionary) Congress in 1774. In 1775 the Continental Congress dispatched him to
EnglandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
in an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the differences leading to the
Revolutionary WarThe American Revolutionary War , also sometimes known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen united former British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers...
. He returned the following year, convinced that a friendly settlement of the dispute was impossible, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1777, where he signed the Articles of Confederation in 1778. As a member of the latter body, he became chairman in January 1778 of the committee appointed to visit Washington at Valley Forge and confer with him concerning the reorganization of the army. This committee spent about three months in camp, and assisted Washington in preparing the plan of reorganization which Congress in the main adopted. In this year, he was also a member of a committee to consider Lord North's offer of conciliation, which he vigorously opposed.
Dana left the Congress to accompany
John AdamsJohn Adams was an American politician and the second President of the United States , after being the first Vice President for two terms. He is regarded as one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution...
to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as a secretary to the diplomatic delegation. In 1780 he was named as American minister to
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and while he never gained official recognition from
Catherine IICatherine II , also known as Catherine the Great, born . She was Empress of Russia from until . Under her direct auspices the Russian Empire expanded, improved its administration, and continued to modernize along Western European lines...
, he remained in St. Petersburg until 1783. After his return, he was again elected to the national congress in 1784. In 1785 Dana was appointed to the
Supreme Court of MassachusettsThe Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SJC has the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Western Hemisphere.-History:...
, and served there until 1806, as the Chief Justice after 1791. An earnest advocate of the adoption of the
Federal constitutionThe Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States...
, he was a member of the state convention which ratified it in 1788, and was one of the most influential advisers of the leaders of the Federalist Party, specifically its
Essex JuntoThe Essex Junto was a group of lawyers and merchants from Essex County, Massachusetts. These Federalists supported Alexander Hamilton and the Massachusetts radicals. When Hamilton was offered a place in the plot to secede New England from the Union, he denied the offer. Consequently, the Essex...
.
Dana generally retired from public life in 1806. He was one of the early members of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, and actively supported the growth of Harvard University. His son,
Richard Henry Dana, Sr.Richard Henry Dana, Sr. was an American poet, critic and lawyer. His son, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., also became a lawyer and author.-Biography:...
, was an important poet and literary critic as well as a lawyer. His grandson,
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.Richard Henry Dana Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of an eminent colonial family who gained renown as the author of the American classic, the memoir Two Years Before the Mast...
(1815-1882) was a noted lawyer and author who served as
U.S. AttorneyUnited States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
for Massachusetts and wrote the classic
Two Years Before the MastTwo Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. A film adaptation under the same name was released in 1946.- Background :...
. Dana died in
Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent...
and is buried in the Old Cambridge Cemetery.
External links