AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



425 



CHARL.ES DADAIVT. 



This week we are afforded the pleasure 

 of presenting to our readers an autobio- 

 graphical sketch and picture of Mr. 

 Chas. Dadant, the senior member of the 



j»»»kia&,y-iJ^v 



CHAS. DADANT. 



firm of Chas. Dadant & Son, of Hamil- 

 ton, Ills., the largest manufacturers of 

 comb foundation in the world. Mr. 

 Dadant is too well and favorably known 

 to the whole bee-keeping world to re- 

 quire any extended introduction from 

 us, hence we at once invite you to a 



reading of the following interesting ac- 

 count of himself : 



I was born on May 22, 1817, in Vaux- 

 sous-Aubigny, a French village of Cham- 

 paign, near the confines of Burgundy. 

 My father was a doctor of medicine. 

 From the age of 6 to 17 I went to 

 school, living with my grandfather, who 

 was a locksmith in the city of Langres. 



Then I entered as clerk in a wholesale 

 dry-goods store, and ten years after I 

 went into partnership with one of the 

 owners of the store. We began success- 

 fully ; we had earned some money when 

 the French Revolution of 1848 came, 

 followed by the Republic, which was de- 

 stroyed by Napoleon III, and replaced 

 by his Empire. For six years the trouble 

 and the insecurity lasted, and deter- 

 mined us to quit the business. Then I 

 succeeded to my father-in-law, who was 

 a tanner, but bad luck continued to per- 

 secute me. 



The city of Langres, the ancient 

 Audomatunum, which, several thou- 

 sands years ago was the capital of a 

 people named the "Lingones," is situ- 

 ated on a high mountain, which over- 

 looks its vicinity nearly on every side. 

 Cassar, and the other Roman emperors, 

 at the time when the Roman Empire 

 owned most of Western Europe, fortified 

 Langres with strong walls, which were 

 so well constructed that they are solid 

 yet, after 2,000 years. These walls 

 affording a protection to the inhabitants, 

 the city was densely peopled, and its 

 commerce was facilitated by a quantity 

 of good roads, laid with stones and 

 cement, and directed to every point of 

 the compass. 



These Roman roads, as they are yet 

 called, helped greatly the business of 

 the city, which was very prosperous 

 until the railroads came. Of course 

 these railroads refused to climb the high 

 mountains, and built their depot two 

 miles away, in the bottom of a deep 

 valley. Then the city began to depopu- 

 late, and its buildings lost 90 per cent, 

 of their value. Compelled to go else- 

 where to get a living, I resolved to come 

 to the United States. 



It was thirty years ago I came, a poor 

 man, with a family. Unable to under- 

 stand a word of English, I subscribed 

 for a weekly paper, and began to trans- 

 late it with the help of a pocket diction- 

 ary. But the greatest difficulty was the 

 pronunciation. I was soon able to write 

 so as to be understood, but my spoken 

 English was not intelligible. The French 

 language has very little accent; while 

 the English has the accent on one sylla- 



