Dana chronicles stops at the ports of Monterey, San Pedro, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara. It contains a rare and detailed account of life on the California coast a decade before the Gold Rush revolutionized the region’s culture and society. First published in 1841, it is one of America’s most famous accounts of life at sea. Two Years Before the Mast is based on the diary Dana kept while at sea. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature from 1867 to 1868. Completing his education, Dana became a leader of the American bar, an expert on maritime law, and a life-long advocate of the rights of the merchant seamen he had come to know on the Pilgrim and other vessels.ĭana was an antislavery activist, and in 1848 he helped found the Free-Soil Party. He shipped out of Boston as a common seaman on board the brig Pilgrim bound for the Pacific, and returned to Massachusetts two years later. He left his studies at Harvard in 1834 in the hope that a sea voyage would aid his failing eyesight. Richard Henry Dana, American writer and lawyer, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 1, 1815.
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