William Henry Dann
William Henry Dann was born at Buckland, a parish of Dover in Kent, in September 1854. He was baptised there on 7 January 1855, the son of George Dann and his wife Elizabeth. His father was a printer who set type as a compositor. His mother had been married before, and her son John Pilcher grew up in the house with William, his sister Ann and his brothers George, Albert and Alfred. His mother died in May 1862, when he was seven.
His father married again in 1870. The 1871 census of Dover lists William H. Dann, aged sixteen, as a carpenter's apprentice. He was living with his father, his stepmother Margaret, his brothers Albert and Alfred, and a baby half-brother, James.
That same year he left for America. A history of Randolph County, West Virginia, published in 1898 while he was living there, tells it this way: "He came to America in 1871 and located at St. Louis, thence moved to Kansas where he clerked in the land office, and was Town Clerk of Wakeeney, and in 1885 was elected clerk of Trego County, Kansas." The censuses of 1900 and 1910 give his arrival as 1872 and 1873.
The federal land offices of the West handled the sale and homestead entry of public land. The one William worked in was run by Capt. Benjamin J. F. Hanna, its Register, the officer who kept the official record of every claim. The office sat at Hays City until October 1879 and then moved west to WaKeeney. The 1880 census lists William at WaKeeney as a "Clerk in US Land Office."
He married Hanna's daughter, Christina Addison Hanna. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, published in 1883, dates the wedding to Christmas Day, 25 December 1876, at Salina. The 1898 history says 1875.
He was in trade as well. Cutler names "Morgan & Dann" among the four general stores of WaKeeney. His partner was probably B. F. Morgan, who married Christina's sister Lucie at WaKeeney in 1882. William was Town Clerk of WaKeeney and in 1885 was elected clerk of Trego County. Five of his children were born in Kansas: Albert Edwin in 1877, William Christie in 1879, Margaret Elizabeth in 1881, Annie Ethel in 1884 and Benjamin George in April 1894.
Some time after 1894 the family moved east to Elkins, in Randolph County, West Virginia. There William was a hardware merchant with "a large store" and owned half of the Warfield-Dann building. In 1897 he was elected City Recorder of Elkins. The same year he "lost heavily in the fire." He sat on the Board of Education and was secretary of the Masonic lodge. His last child, Christine, was born at Elkins on 11 July 1899. The 1900 census lists the family there.
By 1910 the Danns had moved to Prince George's County, Maryland. A Randolph County history of 1916 says he "for a number of years has resided at Beltsville, a suburb of Washington." His eldest son Albert stayed at Elkins as manager of the Elkins Furniture and Hardware Company. Christina died in 1917.
On 22 June 1921 a William H. Dann, aged 66, married Maude W. Gardner, aged 44, in the District of Columbia. The age fits him, and he had been a widower for four years, so this was probably his second marriage. William Henry Dann died in 1936. He is buried at St. John's Episcopal Church Cemetery in Beltsville, under a rock-faced DANN family monument he shares with Christina.
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Cite: Heirology, "William Henry Dann (1854-1936)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-henry-dann-1854-1936-1fb454.