Richard Henry Dana - Santa Barbara, CA - Dead Poets' Society Memorials on Waymarking.com

This sign is located on the wall of Casa de la Guerra adobe building across from Santa Barbara's City Hall.
The sign is on glazed set of tiles depicting an old sailing ship and reads:

"IN COMMEMORATION OF THE VISIT OF
THE SHIP ALERT TO SANTA BARBARA IN
JANUARY 1836 AT WHICH TIME
RICHARD HENRY DANA WAS ENTERTAINED
IN THIS HOUSE AS WAS DESCRIBED IN
TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST."

Wikipedia (visit link) further informs us:

"Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of an eminent colonial family who gained renown as the author of the American classic, the memoir Two Years Before the Mast. Both as a writer and as a lawyer, he was a champion of the downtrodden, from seamen to fugitive slaves...

During his voyages he had kept a diary, and in 1840 (coinciding with his admission to the bar) he published a memoir, Two Years Before the Mast. The term, "before the mast" refers to sailors' quarters, which were located in the forecastle (the ship's bow), officers' quarters being near the stern. His writing evidences his later sympathy for the oppressed. With the California Gold Rush later in the decade, Two Years Before the Mast would become highly sought after as one of the few sources of information on California."

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Date Logged Log User Rating   04/19/2013 Metro2 visited it