SAMUEL LUTHER DANA. 



1795-1868. 



SAMUEL LUTHER DANA, the second son of Lucy (Giddings) 

 and Captain Luther Dana, was born July u, 1795, in the town 

 of Amherst, not far from Nashua, N. H. He was descended 

 from Richard Dana who came to this country and settled in 

 Cambridge about 1640. His father was a native of Groton, 

 Mass., and in the latter part of the Revolutionary War en- 

 tered the navy of the United States as a midshipman, he being 

 then seventeen years of age. Soon after his marriage in 1788, 

 he took up his residence at Amherst, and engaged in mercan- 

 tile business. This not proving successful he took to the sea 

 again, becoming a shipmaster in the merchant service. He 

 followed the sea until a few years before his death, in 1832, 

 and made about seventy voyages to ports in Europe, Asia, and 

 America. Captain Dana was fond of knowledge and took 

 pleasure in collecting objects of natural history, many valu- 

 able specimens being given by him to the Marine Museum at 

 Salem, Mass. He had no faith in the superstitions with which 

 seafaring men are haunted, and rather preferred to go out of 

 port on Friday. On one of his most successful voyages he 

 left Salem on a Friday, called at two European ports, reaching 

 and leaving both on Fridays, and it was on a Friday that he 

 finally reached home. His daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Free- 

 man Dana, has described him as " tall and well formed, with a 

 sensible, frank, cheerful countenance. He had clear blue 

 eyes, dark-brown hair, which became silvery white at an early 

 period of life, and a fair complexion, somewhat embrowned by 

 exposure." She also speaks of him as ever ready to assist any 

 who might require aid one whom the weakest or lowliest 

 might appeal to with the certainty of receiving a kind re- 

 sponse. Lucy Giddings was married to him when she was 

 sixteen years of age. She was very handsome and viva- 



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