We are back from the ABA Forum on Construction's Annual Meeting. Dana Point was a great location for an inspiring program, and it's named for a lawyer who worked for the underdog and wrote a successful and influential book, Two Years Before the Mast. The book is said to have influenced Herman Melville. We should all do so well in our avocations!
Chair Andy Ness has graciously shared with us his opening remarks at the Awards Ceremony honoring, among others, James Schenck (concluding his tenure as an officer of the Forum), Adrian Bastianelli (Cornerstone Award), and Ava Abramovitz (for working tirelessy on the new Strategic Plan).
Here is Andy Ness:
Dana Point, April 25, 2013
Welcome to Dana Point. We are in the City of Dana Point, but Dana Point is also the dominant geographic feature of this area. It’s a large headland that sticks well into the Pacific, with a great view both up and down coast from the small park up there. Dana Point is the most prominent coastal feature between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Dana Point is actually named for a lawyer, Richard Henry Dana. How that came to be is an interesting part of U.S. history. Almost exactly 180 yrs ago, Dana had to drop out of Harvard College due to weak eyesight, and he was told by his doctor to take a long sea voyage to recover his health. So he signed on as a common seaman on a sailing ship about to leave on a two year voyage to one of the most exotic and remote spots on earth. The destination was a sleepy, far away northern province of Mexico called Upper California, which only a handful of Americans had ever seen, and vast majority knew nothing about whatsoever.
Dana’s ship stopped here at the Point several times to pick up cargo. and Dana would climb up and stand atop that cliff. There was nothing whatsoever man-made to see here, although the Mission San Juan Capistrano was over the hill in the valley beyond.
When Dana got home, he wrote a book about his adventure, and in it he described this unnamed Point and his other stops in detail. He described the ample resources and outstanding climate, and talked about how much potential this very remote coast would have, if only it was populated by people who had some energy and ambition, like the people back home in New England. His book became a best seller, titled Two Years Before the Mast. Today it has long been considered an American classic, and it is still a good read. And since the copyright has long expired, you can download it to an e-reader for free!
Dana’s book is how most Americans in the 1830s first learned about California, and it inspired a trickle of American settlers to make their way to California over the next 10 years or so. The book also played a role in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican War in 1846, where one of the U.S. demands of Mexico was giving up claim to Upper California, this intriguing piece of real estate that might prove valuable someday. Then just two years later, about 400 miles North of here, one of those few Americans who had made their way to California discovered gold in 1848, and after that things happened very fast in California.
Richard Henry Dana went on to a distinguished legal career back in Boston, where he was best known as an advocate for the rights of sailors, having experienced the extreme mistreatment of sailors first-hand. So that is how Dana Point came to be named for a Boston lawyer, who made a real difference in the world through his book, which was basically a travelogue about his very extended spring break.
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