John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[9] credit business, Staats & Dana could neither collect the money due to them nor pay what they owed to others, consequently there was nothing left for them but to close their doors, discharge their clerks, and save what they could from the wreck.

Of course young Dana shared the fate of his companions, and thus found himself unexpectedly at the parting of the ways. His career as a merchant's clerk, except for temporary employment the next year by George Wright & Company, was ended without the slightest regard to his preferences; but they now asserted themselves, and without hesitation he decided to enter college as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements and complete his preparation in scholarship, which was done entirely by himself. While it is not positively known, it is altogether probable that he selected Harvard mainly through the influence of his friend and neighbor Dr. Austin Flint, a brilliant young practitioner of medicine who had graduated there in 1833, and removed to Buffalo to enter upon his profession two years later. It is certain that young Dana soon became intimate with him, and that they spent much of their leisure together till Dana set out for Cambridge. Flint was a man of high scholarship and engaging manners, and afterwards achieved great distinction at Buffalo as well as in New York, to which place he removed in 1859. For several years after parting he and Dana appear to have kept up an active correspondence, extracts from which will be given as occasion arises.

Encouraged by his friends, sustained by his ambition, and impelled by his cherished purposes, Dana left Buffalo to enter upon his new life in June, 1839. He was then about twenty years of age, tall and slender, with a fresh complexion, fastidious in taste and habits, and highly esteemed by all who knew him. Speaking of him, an old