Jurist; born in
Charlestown, Mass., June 13, 1743; son of
Richard Dana; graduated at Harvard in 1762.
He was admitted to the bar in 1767; was an active patriot; a delegate to the Provincial Congress in 1774; went to
England in 1775 with confidential letters to
Franklin; was a member of the executive council from 1776 to 1780; member of the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1778, and again in 1784; member of the board of war, Nov. 17, 1777; and was at the head of a committee charged with the entire reorganization of the army.
When
Mr. Adams went on an embassy to negotiate a treaty of peace and commerce with
Great Britain,
Mr. Dana was secretary of the legation.
At
Paris,
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7]
early in 1781, he received the appointment from Congress of minister to
Russia, clothed with power to make the accession of the
United States to the “armed neutrality.”
He resided two years at
St. Petersburg, and returned to
Berlin in 1783.
He was again in Congress in the spring of 1784, and the next year was made a justice of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts.
In 1791 he was appointed chief-justice of
Massachusetts, which position he held fifteen years, keeping aloof from political life, except in 1792 and 1806, when he was Presidential elector.
He retired from the bench and public life in 1806, and died in
Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 1811.