He was married twice, to Elizabeth Coombs on December 30, 1800, and to Sarah Emery on November 8, 1814.[2]
Dana was reluctant to take on the presidency of an institution so recently embattled following the Dartmouth College case. He was finally convinced by the Trustees to become the fourth president in the Wheelock Succession in August 1820. Plagued by ill health and exhausted by the strain of the presidency, he resigned less than a year later, in May 1821.[2]