The Short-Lived Schooner Tempest, of Ashtabula Ohio

An image of a Hudson River sloop from the mid 1810s, similar to the small vessels that plied Lake Erie at the time.

The State of Ohio,

County of Erie

Personally appeared before me, a justice of the peace in and for the county aforesaid, this tenth day of November, AD 1838, Benjamin A. Napier, of Portage township... deposeth and says that he commanded the schooner called the Tempest, in the month of September 1814; that he continued in command of said schooner until he was impressed into the United States service by order of Captain John G. Camp, then of the quartermaster's department; that he continued in said schooner until some time about the middle of September 1814, at which time he was discharged; that thereupon he forthwith reloaded said schooner with the same goods of which he she had been divested at the time of her impressment, and set sail for the port of Ashtabula; that on the night of the same day that he sailed, and before he was able to make any port, he was overtaken by one of the most severe storms or gales that he had ever experienced on Lake Erie, and was driven ashore on the Erie bar, with the entire loss of the said schooner and cargo; that he has no hesitation in saying, that but for the detention of said schooner in Buffalo by the United States officers, that he would have arrived safely with said schooner and cargo at Ashtabula, several days previous to said storm; that said schooner was built and owned at the time of her loss, jointly, by Mr. Isaac Cook, Peletiah Shepard and himself, and as for the cargo, a portion of which was the property of John Metcalf of Ashtabula, which consisted of dry goods, groceries, tobacco, &c, &c, in which he is not interested directly or indirectly; he has no definite knowledge of its amount or of all the owners.

B.A. Napier

Subscribed and sworn before me, the day and year first above written.

Zenas W. Barker,

Justice of the Peace

There's a lot of information about the later War of 1812 and the Lake Erie frontier contained in this deposition. After a gale in November 1813 sank or drove aground most of the smaller vessels of Perry's fleet near Buffalo, the US Navy was severely reduced in its carrying capacity. Since most of the existing commercial vessels on the American side of the lake had been captured by the British, or bought up by the Navy in the earlier part of the war, there was a surge in shipbuilding in many of the small settlements of northern Ohio. These river harbors, in places like Sandusky, Huron, and Cleveland, were blocked by shallow sandbars at the mouths-- sometimes high enough for teams and wagons to be driven over them! It was vital for a pioneer settlement to be able to ship out produce, and ship in finished goods and vital things like salt from Buffalo, their link to the eastern seaboard. Therefore small schooners of between 20 and 30 tons were being constructed and usually co-owned by local settlers in these places. Even decades after the war, larger vessels like the Brig Union and the steamships Walk in the Water and Superior would have to anchor offshore and exchange cargo and passengers using small boats. If bad weather threatened as it often does on Lake Erie, the big ships might well bypass these settlements in search of a safe anchorage, such as at Put-in-Bay. 

The small schooners were not only important to the settlers who were returning to their homes, in some cases, after having fled Indian raiders in 1812, but to the army as well. The army depended on shipping to move supplies and reinforcements to its outposts at Detoit, Malden, and Fort Gratiot. It also needed to supply the besieged force at Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, until that force blew up the fort and retreated to American soil late in the year. Captain Arthur Sinclair, the successor of Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry, found himself with only the brig Niagara and the schooner Porcupine operational by the end of 1814. He found it necessary to launch a new, small schooner, the Ghent, in 1815 to assist in moving troops, supplies, and dispatches up and down the lake-- as well as new garrisons to reoccupy Chicago and Fort Mackinac once those places were returned to American control. 

As for Captain Camp, Gardner's Dictionary of Officers states that he was a Virginian, served as a Midshipman in the navy from 1809 to 1811, and then served in the 12th US Infantry, rising from 1st Lieutenant to Major by 1814. Quartermaster was a staff position, and apparently he did well enough to serve not only as the regimental quartermaster of the 12th Regiment but eventually as the main quartermaster (Deputy Quartermaster General) on the staff of General Jacob Brown's Left Division:

Camp's association with the Lake Erie frontier did not end in 1815. He continued to reside in Buffalo, New York until 1834, when he moved his family to Sandusky. His son, John G Camp, Jr, became a prominent banker and railroad magnate in the mid 1800s and oversaw the expansion of the railroad network in Ohio:

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1821, Camp came to Ohio in 1834, when his father Major John G. Camp, Sr., relocated the family, including his brother Jacob A. Camp, in Sandusky, Ohio. John Camp, Jr., was a practicing attorney (Camp & Leonard), banker, and part owner of the "city tract" (known originally as Portland) that later became the city and port of Sandusky, Ohio. Closely aligned with Norwalk, Ohio, businessman John Gardiner, Camp worked to locate several early rail lines in the Sandusky area. In an attempt to increase property values and area business, Camp devoted considerable time to negotiating with Ohio politicians for railroad charters, securing "subscribers," and financing of the Mad River and the Indiana Railroads. Camp remained deeply involved in local business matters until his death in Carthage, Ohio, on October 28, 1865. (Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Finding Aid)