James Harrison Dakin was born on August 24, 1806 in New York city, New York, United States; the son of James and Lucy Harrison Dakin of Hudson. He was seventh in line from the immigrant ancestor, Thomas Dakin, of Concord, Massachussets, through Simon, of the third generation, who went to Putnam County, New York, from Massachusetts.
James Dakin was a pupil of Alexander Jackson Davis from 1829.
From an early date Dakin developed a practice of his own, for he was the architect of the large J. W. Perry house, in Brooklyn, about 1830-31, and of the Washington Square Dutch Reformed Church, an unusually advanced example of Gothic Revival work. He also was in touch with Minard Lafever during this period and, a beautiful draftsman, drew a number of the plates, which are signed by him, in Lafever's The Modern Builder's Guide. Apparently, too, he had some means.
From May 1, 1832, to November 1, 1834, he was a partner of Town & Davis, and from existing accounts of the firm he seems to have contributed a generous amount of working capital. The partnership ended in some disagreement; a letter from Town to Davis indicates that Dakin, owing to his investment in the firm, considered he had a greater right to dictate policies than the older partners could brook. During this period Town & Davis were engaged on many important works, including the Capitol of North Carolina (1832), New York University, and the Marine Pavilion (a luxurious hotel) at Rockaway; Dakin's name appears as one of the architects of the last two.
It was at this time that the firm employed James Gallier for some four months at $2. 00 a day. Here Gallier met Dakin's younger brother, Charles Bingley, whom he took with him to New Orleans in 1834. A year later, James Dakin followed. Ambitious, he realized as Gallier had the opportunities New Orleans offered. For a time there seems to have been a loose partnership between the three. Both James Dakin and Gallier claim to have been the architects of certain New Orleans buildings of the period. Within a year, however, the Dakins left Gallier and practised for a time together as Dakin & Dakin and as Dakin, Bell & Dakin; later still they split, and Charles began an ill-fated practice in Mobile. The collapse of a row of warehouses he designed affected him so deeply that it is thought to have been a cause contributing to his early death in Texas, where he had gone to begin anew.
James Dakin's work with Gallier (1835) included Christ Church, the front of which is preserved as a Knights of Columbus clubhouse (1835 - 37), the Verandah Hotel (1837 - 38), and the Merchants' Exchange (1835 - 36) on Royal Street. In 1838 he designed St. Patrick's Church, an ambitious essay in a rich Gothic style, supposedly modeled on York Cathedral. When difficulties occurred in its construction, Gallier was called in to revise the foundations; ever afterward he claimed it erroneously as one of his buildings.
Dakin was also architect of the Methodist Episcopal Church (burned with the St. Charles Hotel), of "Union Terrace" (1836 - 37) on Canal Street, and of the gracious row of thirteen houses on Julia Street known as the "Thirteen Buildings" or the "Julia Buildings. " At this time, too, Dakin, Bell & Dakin were employed as the architects of a proposed city hall for New Orleans, but the project was abandoned and the architects paid and discharged by the City Council on March 28, 1837. The relation of this design to Gallier's later City Hall, if any, is not known. There is also evidence that James and Charles Dakin were the architects of several unidentified buildings in Cincinnati and St. Louis.
After 1848 James lived chiefly at Baton Rouge. During the Mexican War James H. Dakin served as colonel of the 2nd Louisiana Volunteers. On his return he was one of the architects consulted with regard to the Custom House and was briefly its titular architect (1850 - 51). He restudied the approved designs of A. T. Wood and suggested many changes to improve its usefulness; many of these were incorporated in the design finally erected.
In 1848 he had won a competition for the new State House, and he resigned the Custom House appointment in 1852 to devote the rest of his life to that work. For it he chose the Gothic style, "because no other style could give suitable character to a building with so little cost" and because to use classic would give a building "which would appear to be a mere copy of some other edifice already erected and often repeated in every city and town of our country" (Diary in Louisiana State University).
As a designer Dakin was forceful and original. The Perry house in Brooklyn (remarkable for its conservatory wings) and the Julia Buildings show a competent use of the current Greek Revival forms. But it is in the Gothic of St. Patrick's and the Louisiana Capitol that his originality best appears; the interior of the former, with its intricate plaster ribbing and cleverly top-lighted sanctuary, and the varied and forceful masses of the latter, together with its original plan and fancifully delicate woodwork (renewed after a fire in 1887), reveal him as a man with marked imagination.
James Dakin was one of America's leading architects. A native of New York, Dakin designed important buildings in both the North and the South from 1832 to 1852 and contributed significantly to the Greek, Gothic, and Egyptian revival movements. His work in Louisiana includes St. Patrick's Church, the State Arsenal, the Medical College of Louisiana, the University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge. He also designed numerous buildings in other American cities.
Dakin was one of the founding members of the American Institute of Architects.
In 1829 he married Joanna (or Georgiana) Belcher (1796 - 1882) of Norwich, Connecticut, the widow of George Collard. There were seven children, two of whom survived to maturity.
