5^^ 



HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



papers were of great value, took them in a 

 pillow case along with her to Connecticut. 

 When Anderson became of more niauire 

 age he, with a younger brother, returned 

 to Wyoming Valley, taking with them a 

 cow and a horse. They built a log house 

 on the land their father had located, put 

 in some crops, and when the crops had 

 well grown they sent for their mother and 

 the other children, who came on with other 

 persons coming to the Valley from Con- 

 necticut. He married Sarah Stevens, of 

 Wilkes-Barre (so named after the Declara- 

 tion of the Independence of the United 

 States of America, in honor of John Wilkes, 

 and Colonel Barre, men of influence in 

 England, who used their influence in favor 

 of the freedom of the colonies), the county 

 town of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, 

 and located in the valky of Wyoming, 

 about the centre of it. He carried on farm- 

 ing. While in Connecticut and a minor, 

 he had learned the trade of cooper, and 

 made his own barrels, milk pails, tubs, 

 etc. He was associate judge for some time 

 in the Wilkes-Barre county court, council- 

 man, road supervisor, collector of taxes, 

 and Lieutenant of the State Militia. He 

 held other positions of trust, and was 

 highly esteemed as a citizen and a neigh- 

 bor. He had eleven children who mostly 

 settled in and around Wilkes-Barre. He 

 died at his homestead in Wilkes-Barre in 

 1851, aged about eighty-six years. The 

 children were : Amelia, born July 23, 

 1791 ; Laura, born May 28, 1793, died Aug- 

 ust 16, 1794; Asa Stevens, born December 

 17, 1794, married Hannah Pruner, and after 

 her death he married her sister, Nancy 

 Pruner; Sarah, wife of Rowland Metcalf, 

 born September 16, 1796; Francis, born 

 May 23, 1798, married Sophia Whitcomb; 

 Louisa Huntington, born March 19, 1800, 

 died 1842 ; Anderson, born February 26, 

 1802, married Ann Jameson, and afterward 

 Mary Hammer; Eleazer, born April 22,, 

 1804; Sylvester, born May 28, 1806, married 

 Elizabeth Brown, of Worthington, Ohio; 

 Mary, born June 16, 1808, married Ly- 

 man C. Kidder; and Charles, born August 

 6, 181 1. 



Sylvester Dana, son of the above Ander- 

 son Dana, was a gentleman of great worth 

 as a lawyer and educator. He was born May 

 28, 1806, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 

 where he was reared on his father's farm. 

 He was educated at the Wilkes-Barre 

 Academy, then conducted by the Hon. 

 Joel Jones, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

 From thence he went to Yale College, in 

 New Haven, Connecticut. Having passed 

 through the usual course he graduated from 

 there in 1826 with the degree of Master of 

 Arts. He then returned to Wilkes-Barre 

 and entered upon the study of law with 

 Judge Garrick Mallory, and, when admitted 

 to the bar, went to Ohio, where he had 

 charge of the Worthington seminary as 

 principal for three years. He married Eliza- 

 beth Brown, one of the assistant teachers 

 in the seminary. He then practiced law. 



associated with Judge . Olds, having, 

 moved to Circleville. He there also pub- 

 lished the "Olive Branch," a weekly 

 paper. His health proving delicate, his 

 physician advised a change of climate, 

 and he arranged to take charge of a 

 seminary at Charleston, South Carolina, 

 but before moving the directors sent word 

 that a former applicant, whom they had 

 thought would not come, had arrived. The 

 academy of Wilkes-Barre having then no 

 principal, he accepted a call to this old 

 school of his boyhood days and moved to 

 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1839 he 

 he built a fine academy of his own for 

 young men, especially those fitting them- 

 selves for college, known as Dana's Acad- 

 emy, at the corner of Franklin and Acad- 

 emy streets, the latter so called from his 

 institution. In 1855 he was called as prin- 

 cipal to the academy at Jersey Shore, 

 Lycoming county, near Williamsport, on 

 the west branch of the Susquehanna river, 

 where he served for two years, having 

 rented to another party his school at 

 Wilkes-Barre. Then being called to the 

 Saltsbury academy, in Allegheny county, 

 Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, he conducted 

 that two years, when his school at Wilkes- 

 Barre being vacant he returned to Wilkes- 

 Barre, and resumed his academy there, 

 which bore his name. During his teaching 

 at his academy in Wilkes-Barre, most of 

 the rising young men of the place, and 

 many from Baltimore and other places at 

 great distances around, were prepared for 

 their entrance into colleges. October i, 

 1866, he moved to the place near Morris- 

 ville where he resided until his death, June 

 19, 1882. Politically he was a Whig, and 

 later a Republican. He was a member of 

 the Presbyterian church, in which he was. 

 deacon most of his life. He was married 

 to Elizabeth Brown in Ohio, March 26, 

 1832, and had five children : Robert Shoe- 

 maker Dana, subject of this history; Eu- 

 nice A., born September 9, 1837; Elizabeth, 

 born March 4. 1840; Louisa Amelia, born 

 February 3, 1842 ; and Ellen, born Septem- 

 ber 16, 1850. The daughters are now liv- 

 ing at No. 24 South Clinton Avenue, Tren- 

 ton, New Jersey, except Elizabeth, who 

 died of pneumonia, December 20, 1901. 

 After moving to Morrisville, Pennsylvania, 

 he was a member of the Fourth Presby- 

 terian church in Trenton, New Jersey, also 

 one of the original founders of the Mor- 

 risville Rubber Company, chartered in 1872, 

 and located in the old Morris _ (Robert) 

 and General Victor Moreau brick stable 

 building in Morrisville. He was also one 

 of the originf^l members who organized the 

 Standard Insurance Company, now (as 

 then) located in State street, Trenton, and 

 one of the original stockholders and 

 founders of Greenwood cemetery, outside of 

 Trenton, where the family have a lot and 

 where he and his wife and daughter Eliza- 

 beth lie buried. His wife died February 6, 

 1878. She was borii in Bloomficld, Con- 

 necticut, November i, 1814, and was of a 



