Connecticut western news., 1897-10-21
EDITOR DANA IS DEAD
THE VETERAN JOURNALIST EXPIRES
 AT HIS LONG ISLAND HOME.

AT HIS LONG ISLAND HOME. He Had Been III Since June Last, and His Death Was Not Unexpected-Await- ed the End Like Philosopher, Sur rounded by His Family.
 New York, Oct. 18.-Charles A.. Dana,
 editor of The Sun, died at his home,
 Dosoris island, near Glen Cove, N. Y,
 yesterday afternoon, at the age of 78.
 Surrounded by his children, ripe in the
 great love of his intimates, the editor
 saw the sunlight for the last time when,
 amid the splendors of a perfect day, all nature about him seemed aglow.
 The stirring life of Charles Anderson Dana began in the village of Hinsdale, Cheshire county, N. H., on Aug. 8, 1919.
 On his fathers side he was descended
 from Richard Dana, who came from
 England in 1640. His great-grandfather, Anderson Dana, was killed in the Wy oming massacre of July 3, 1778. His
 mother was Ann Denison, a grand daughter of Seth Paine, a member of the Connecticut state convention that ratified the federal constitution in 17S8.
 When he was 16 years of age he enter ed Harvard college, immediately giving evidence that he possessed unusual mental gifts.
 But he was obliged to give up his
 college course. Whether it was over
 use of his eyes by candle light or neg feet, a functional disturbance which threatened to become organic com- pelled him to abandon his books just as he was entering the junior year. Soon after MT. Dana thought of mercantile career, and he went to Buff falo, then a thriving village, where,
 with relative, he sold goods over the counter. A short experience was suff1- cient to satisfy him that his calling was not in trade. Books, observation, asso- citation with men who knew much about many things, had far more fasci- nation for this lad than did the drudg- cry of barter or the chink of silver over the counter. He became dreary and was fascinated with the problems of socialism as they were discussed in his early youth, and he gladly joined that famous but wholly impossible so- cial community called Brook Farm, which was established in what was then the town of Roxbury, Mass Here MT. Dana, with Nathaniel flaw thorne and Margaret Fuller and George Ripley and George William Curtis and others who were of literary fame or promise, did his share of menial work with cheerfulness and held his own in the literary and philosophical discus sions which were carried on by these thinkers. Dana was one of the first to realize that the experiment was, if not absurd, at least bound to be failure. He lived long enough to see all of his associates in that experiment. die and every one of them convinced that the scheme was utopian. Shortly after the
 Brook Farm experience he went to Flu
 rope.
 In Paris During the Revolution. Soon after reaching Paris he spoke French with fluency, and as he was | there at the time of the revolution of tS48 his newspaper instincts were fully l developed, and his acquaintance with French enabled him fully to under stand the meaning of the exciting scenes of that day. He wrote of them | in a series of letters published in the New York Tribune, and his correspond ence is even regarded to this day as
 model of that department of journal | ism.
 Undoubtedly this work brought MT. Dana into close relations with The Tribune. for soon after he accepted an offer from Horace Greeley to become
 managing editor of that paper.
 l In this capacity MT. Dana developed
 another quality which even his friends had not hitherto fully realized. The | managing editor of a paper even st that time was it's executive officer and | n the fierce competition which was | then raging between The Tribune and The Herald the highest executive quail I<, I4I t4 t4I1 traordinary genius of James Gordon Bennett. MT. Dana revealed them. He did not write much, but almost every thing that was written was at his sug- |gestion, Mr. Greeley devoting his atten- ton especially to the political and eco homie direction of the paper
 MT. Dana drew to The Tribune some of the ablest writers and thinkers of the time, and he made the paper the gospel of the thinking. conservative and cultured elements In the communi- ty. MT. Bennett discovered that the
 young managing editor of The Tribune
 had quite as keen "a nose for news" s;s
 he himself possessed and as good a Judgment of the relative importance of news.
 MT. Dana took charge of Tie su-
 sn Jan. 1, 1868, the paper then having
 about 10000 circulation, and his con-
 spicuous career began with that issue of the paper. He called about him a
 competent staff and in less than two
 years had in many respects revolution
 ized journalistic methods.
 Since he took charge of The Sun nearly 30 years ago, he had been con ! tinuously its controlling and directing ? genius. IIatterly he received a salar!
 of $50, 900 9 year, besides a share In thu
 dividends on the Sun company's stock , a considerable part of which he owned | Cofa I.,d1