From "The Dana Family in America" Pages 267-268:

Gen. James Dana (Jedediah, Benjamin, Richard), born Ashford, Conn., Oct. 9, 1735; died Cobleskill, Schoharie County, N.Y., Oct 16, 1817; buried Lawyersville, N.Y.; married Mansfield, Conn., Nov. 27, 1759, ELIZABETH WHITTEMORE, born there, June 9, 1741, died Cobleskill, Sept. 3, 1819, daughter of Joseph and Ann (Slate) Whittemore.

James Dana is said to have been among the Connecticut troops who took part in the battle of Lake George in 1755, under Gen. William Johnson. After marriage he lived in Mansfield, and the land records indicate that he was a resident as late as 1788. He was one of the original grantees of Enfield, N. H., and Pomfret, VT, in 1761, his father, Jedediah Dana, having been the agent who secured charters for these towns. In 1766

(Page 268) he was made ensign in Capt. Experience Storr's Co., of the 5th Conn. Regt., was promoted to lieutenant in 1772, and on Apr. 6, 1775, he was appointed first lieutenant of the 2d Co., 3d. Conn. Regt., then commanded by Col. Israel Putnam (afterward major-general). He marched to Boston with the Connecticut men upon the Lexington alarm, was first to fire on the British by the rail fence at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and served throughout the siege of Boston, during the last three months of which he was captain of a company in Col. John Douglas's Regt. In May, 1776, he was appointed captain in Col. Andrew Ward's Regt., the 1st Connecticut, which joined Washington's army at New York, and was present at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In June, 1777, he held the same rank, in Col. John Ely's Conn. Regt. and shared in the hardships of the winter camp at Valley Forge. In 1781, he commanded a company in Gen. Waterbury'sConn. Brigade, and in 1782 he was major in Col. Samuel Canfield's Conn. Regt. About 1786, Major Dana removed from Mansfield and settled in New York State , residing in Canajoharie, when the first census of the United States was taken. …In 1804 he was commissioned brigadier-general in the New York militia, commanding the Schoharie County Brigade; he resigned in 1806"