Having, in 1845, while still employed by Comstock & Co., advanced some money to the proprietor of The Cnj»tnl Fount, a weekly temperance and literary new.spaper, he was obliged to take the printing-office and paper in repayment of his loan. For more than a year he edited and published the paper besides discharging his duties as book-keeper, and finding the work too burdensome, he finally, in 184G, gave up his position with Gumming, Main & Co., and devoted all his time to the newspaper. In November of the same year he was obliged to discontinue its publication with the loss, not only of the original loan, but

LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN.

also of all his savings. The paper was the organ of

tlie Order of tho Reclial)ites, and Mr. Dawson's uncompromising spirit having involvt'd him in diliicuUios with the principal officers of the order, the paper suffered from the enmities thus aroused.

Mr. Dawson next accepted the agency of the International Art Union, and in the following year, tliat of the American Art Union, wliicli hitter lie retained until the concern was closed hy the Sujireme Court. After this he was an ofiicer of the Wall Street Ferry to Brooklyn, and was successively connected with three different insurance companies in New York. In l<sr)(), owing to the failure of the coni))any of which he was secretary, he was again left without employment, and accepted an offer from Messrs. Johnson, Fry & Co., Puhlishers, to write a work for them on the military and naval history of this country. This was his first hook, although he had already heconie known among historical writers, hy "The Park and its Vicinity," written for and published in the " Manual of the Common Council of the City of New York " for 18');); the " Life and Times of Anne Hutchinson," written for the Baptist Historical Society ; and "The Retreats through Westchester County, in 1776," written for the New York Historical Society.