tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19383263181791536002024-02-02T15:04:56.470-05:00The Old Northwest NotebookChronicling the War of 1812 and other forgotten or obscure history.Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-20060003415472287392021-05-07T15:51:00.005-04:002021-05-07T15:51:54.770-04:00A Man of Tried Courage, Patriotism, and Fidelity: Major Thomas Maxwell and the War of 1812<p> On July 7, 1818 Colonel Joseph L Smith, commanding officer
of the 3<sup>rd</sup> Infantry Regiment and of Detroit, wrote to Daniel Parker,
the Adjutant and Inspector General of the Army at Washington, D.C., regarding
an aged man who was setting off on a journey back east: “Sir, Major Thompson
Maxwell who has been on duty at this place for the last two or three years in
the capacity of principle barrack master is about to visit- walking, too…” The
man he spoke of claimed to have been a survivor of at least four wars: the
French and Indian War (1754-1763), Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763-1766), the
American Revolution (1775-1783), and the War of 1812 (1812-1815). He had fought
as one of Roger’s Rangers; had been one of the disguised Sons of Liberty who
participated in the Boston Tea Party; had been a captain in the Massachusetts
militia during Shay’s Rebellion in 1787.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Whether
Maxwell was present at all these events is not undisputed by historians. One
recent web article calls him “the Forrest Gump of the American Revolution” (<a href="https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thompson-maxwell-the-forrest-gump-of-the-american-revolution/">https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thompson-maxwell-the-forrest-gump-of-the-american-revolution/</a>
accessed 5/5/2021). However, what is easier to verify is his service during the
War of 1812, which is verified by both primary and secondary sources. Most of
the latter remark on his presence with William Hull’s army when it marched to
Detroit. However, in the aftermath of Hull’s surrender of Detroit, a local mob
singled out Thomas Maxwell for reprisal and burned his house down. Homeless and
destitute, in his 60s, Maxwell remained with the American army throughout the
rest of the war. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1800,
Maxwell and his family had moved to Ohio and settled in Butler County, north of
Cincinnati. Maxwell made a living, apparently, by driving hogs overland to
Detroit, and from this and his service during the French and Indian War and
Pontiac’s War—during which he had been to Detroit and Mackinac, he had a good
knowledge of the wilderness between the Ohio settlements and the Michigan
Territory. During Hull’s campaign he made a lifelong friendship with Lt.
Colonel James Miller of the 4<sup>th</sup> Infantry Regiment. When Colonel
Miller led an American force south from Detroit to try and break open the
supply lines to Frenchtown, Thompson Maxwell volunteered to serve as chief
scout, and went on horseback ahead of the column. A few days before, another
American column had been ambushed and several scouts had been killed and
mutilated. Maxwell himself claimed to have survived the infamous Battle of
Bloody Run in July 1763 which had occurred only a few miles away outside
Detroit. This time, there was another, stronger ambush which would be called the Battle of Maguagon, but
Maxwell survived, and the Americans counter-attacked and won the day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, in
the wake of William Hull’s surrender of Detroit, Thompson Maxwell had to give
up his horse, bridle and saddle to the enemy. He was paroled with most of the
other Ohio volunteers and dropped off in Cleveland to make his way home as best
as he could. His homecoming was a sour one. Another Ohio officer, a Captain
Robertson who had been accused of cowardice during a skirmish near the Au
Canard River during the campaign apparently sought to deflect his role in the
defeat and got together a mob to attack him. Maxwell and his family escaped the
mob, but they burned his house and most of his possessions. The Major’s
reputation with the senior officers of the army was such that he was able to
get letters of introduction from Colonels Lewis Cass, James Finley, Duncan
McArthur, Major Thomas Van Horne, and Colonel Miller recommending him to Major
General William Henry Harrison for service: “We can safely recommend him to any
employment which requires firmness and perseverance.” (Harrison Papers).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Major
Maxwell had an aura of experience which awed younger officers. Lieutenant
Joseph H Larwill encountered him on February 1, 1813 at the Northwestern Army’s
camp on the Portage River: “He was one of those who was taken at Fort Edward,
fought at Detroit and Bloody Knife when attacked by the noted Indian Pontiac,
was through the most difficult scenes of the Revolutionary War and
distinguished himself at Brownstown and in Hull’s Campaign. He is too feeble to
stand the fatigues of a march but his breast burns with love of country and is
desirous of rendering all the service that lies in his power, cares not the
situation he may be placed in.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Maxwell
served on General Harrison’s staff as a civilian guide through the early months
of 1813 and was present during the construction of Fort Meigs. However, after
the Battle of Frenchtown in January 1813, during which some local militiamen
who had been involved in Hull’s campaign were captured again, there was fear
that volunteers who might be captured again before being officially exchanged
would be sent to Quebec and hung for breaking their parole. This apparently
nearly happened to another scout named Whitmore Knaggs, who was captured a
second time by Indians but let go. Maxwell returned to Butler County on
February 25, 1813 only to find that his second wife had died 20 days
beforehand. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Maxwell stayed with his son, until
three days later when an anonymous note appeared at the house: “if you secret
Maxwell another night, your home will share the same fate with his.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, Thompson Maxwell stayed with
other friends, travelled to Cincinnati, and was hosted for a while by Duncan
McArthur in Chillicothe before trekking back to Cleveland where the commanding
officer was another friend from Hull’s army: Major Thomas Jesup. From Cleveland
Maxwell rejoined the American Army at Fort George, and remained with it as a
volunteer throughout 1813 and 1814. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">By 1814 both Major Thomas Jesup and
Colonel James Miller had assumed command of regiments in the Left Division
commanded by Major General Jacob Brown (Jesup commanded the famous 25<sup>th</sup>
Infantry in Winfield Scott’s Brigade, and Miller commanded the 21<sup>st </sup>Infantry
in Eleazar Ripley’s Brigade.) Major Maxwell seems to have served alongside them
as a forage master until the siege of Fort Erie, when he was captured somewhere
in Upper Canada outside the American perimeter of the fort. There is another
element of serendipity here too, since the dragoons who captured him were led
by Major Peter L. Chambers of the 41<sup>st</sup> Regiment of Foot. Chambers
might have recognized Maxwell from the surrender of Detroit, and had served
with the British forces in the Northwest before being captured himself at the
Battle of the Thames in 1813. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Thompson Maxwell again lost his
horse, his hat and spurs, and was left with nothing but a handkerchief to wear
on his head as he was marched into captivity. The prisoners were made to walk 60
miles to Kingston. On a stop at Hamilton, they were forced to stay in a small room,
“the stench was so bad and I feeble, that I came back to the door and leaned
against the side of it.” The captain of the guard ordered him to go back in,
despite Maxwell’s protest that he was sick. In response, the officer ordered
the sentry to force him back into the room with the point of a bayonet. “At
this moment Major Rogers (the commissary of prisoners) came along and asked
what was the matter.” When Maxwell told him his name, Rogers recognized him as
a man his father had mentioned having served with during the French and Indian
War:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Major R. gave the Captain d----,
and said to me “Come along with me!” He was put up in a house, given a clean
shirt and a blanket coat, and sent to Kingston on a horse. In Kingston he was
well treated, but in late October he was transferred to Montreal in an open
boat, and was placed under close confinement until March 1815. Several months after
the war ended, he was returned to the territory of the United States at Sackett’s
Harbor, New York. There he met General Jacob Brown, who had commanded the army
at Fort Erie. General Brown gave him $60 and sent him on to Buffalo, where he
was able to collect $375 in back pay. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">After the War of 1812, Maxwell
secured a position as Barracks Master at the US Army post at Detroit. In 1818, when Colonel Smith wrote his letter to the Adjutant General, Maxwell made his way (riding, not walking) overland from Detroit to New Hampshire, where he visited his old friend General Miller, who would be appointed to serve as the first governor of the Arkansas Territory. While staying with Miller, Major Maxwell dictated his life story, which was transcribed by the General's secretary Lt. Allanson. This unpublished memoir, with parts such as the Battle of Maguagon left out "to be filled in later" by Miller, who had also been present. As a result there are many gaps in the narrative concerning Maxwell's part in the 1812 and 1814 campaigns. Returning to Michigan, after his
retirement Maxwell lived in a cottage outside town, and passed away aged 90. He is
buried in the Wallaceville Cemetery, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Sources: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“The Narrative of Major Thompson
Maxwell,” <i>Historical Collections of the Essex Institute</i> 7 no. 3 (June
1865).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Letter of Colonel Joseph L. Smith
to General Daniel Parker, 7 July 1818 (National Archives: Letters Received by
the Adjutant General)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">James L. Barton, <i>Address on the
Early Reminiscences of Western New York and the Lake Country…</i> Buffalo: Steam
Press of Jewett, Thomas & Co., 1848.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Find A Grave: Thompson Maxwell <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(<a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16280641/thompson-maxwell%20accessed%205/7/2021">https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16280641/thompson-maxwell
accessed 5/7/2021</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>New England
Historical Society “Major Thompson Maxwell, Forrest Gump of the American
Revolution" (<a href="https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thompson-maxwell-the-forrest-gump-of-the-american-revolution/">https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thompson-maxwell-the-forrest-gump-of-the-american-revolution/</a>
accessed 5/7/2021)<o:p></o:p></p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-64947292591582146792021-03-31T12:40:00.002-04:002021-03-31T12:40:33.077-04:00From Buffalo to Delaware Ohio and Back in 1811<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/PicIRen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://i.imgur.com/PicIRen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A view from the Marblehead Peninsula today, looking toward Cedar Point and the entrance to Sandusky Bay. The entrance was so shallow and winds so challenging that a portage road was made across the base of the peninsula between the interior of the bay and modern Port Clinton, Ohio. </i></div><p></p><p>In a Columbus, Ohio newspaper an advertisement dated November 23, 1832 offers 500 barrels of "Onondaga Salt". Onondaga is a lake near Syracuse in upstate New York, known in the early 19th century for its salt works. How did all that salt get shipped to Columbus before the railroads? Probably via canal boat from Cleveland via the Columbus Feeder Canal connection to the Ohio and Erie Canal, which connected the waters of the Cuyahoga with the Ohio River. The first canal boat arrived on the Scioto at Columbus in 1831. This is several years before an overland route was cleared in the form of the Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike, which opened in 1834. </p><p>Before that, salt was shipped from Onondaga through the finger lakes region of New York, to Lake Ontario, and then portaged around the Niagara Falls to Black Rock and Buffalo, where it was shipped by schooner to Erie, Pennsylvania. There was a well-worn wagon road between Erie and Waterford, Pennsylvania, where goods could be shipped on keelboats down French Creek and the Alleghany River to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh and the rest of the Ohio valley got most of their salt this way. During the War of 1812, when Oliver Hazard Perry built his fleet at Erie, much of the iron fittings and other things needed for the ships came north from Pittsburgh by this route in reverse.</p><p>James L Barton, an early pioneer of the Buffalo area, recalled a trip he made in 1811-1812 to Central Ohio to trade for hogs in an account printed in 1848 [<a href="https://archive.org/details/addressonearlyre00bart"><i>Address on the early reminiscences of western New York and lake region of country : delivered before the Young Men's Association of Buffalo, February 16, 1848 </i>(Buffalo: Steam Press of Jewett, Thomas & Co, 1848)</a>].</p><p></p><blockquote><p>In 1811, after a very tempestuous passage (in the schooner Catherine, afterwards the Somers, in Commodore Perry's fleet) of nineteen days over the lake, when I first landed on the Peninsular point in that bay, there was no person living where the city of Sandusky now stands--the only building in it was a log hut, where an old Indian had, or did then live, called "Oganse" [the Odawa or Ottawa chief Ogontz--more on him in a future post], and this was the name of the place. </p><p>I was then in the employ of my brother-in-law, Captain Sheldon Thompson, now of this city, bound south of the Sciota [Scioto] River, with a quantity of goods and salt, to purchase hogs, which were to be killed and packed on the Peninsula [the Marblehead Peninsula of Sandusky Bay], near the lake. No large vessels had, at that time, been known to enter that bay, and Captain Tucker did not venture to make the attempt, as the weather was cold and stormy, with some snow flying--it being the last days of October. He ran his vessel as near the shore as was prudent, and landed the loading on the beach, from whence it was rolled far enough back, to be out of reach of the swells of the lake. </p><p>The few people residing on the Peninsula, in four or five log buildings, were suffering from the effects of the fever and ague, and had a most ghastly appearance. They had but few comforts and none of the luxuries of life. At that time they were without flour and tea. They made bread from corn meal; the corn on the ear was first put into a large kettle and boiled until it had swelled out and softened the kernels, and was then grated. The graters were made by breaking a tin lantern to pieces and nailing them on a board. Sage was used for tea. Meat was plenty; all it required to get this, was to shoot down a hog; there were many running in the woods, fat from the quantities of mast they fed upon. I soon improved the living by getting out some tea and sugar, and taking some powder and shot, soon killed ducks (the bay was then full of them), enough daily, to supply the family where I stopped, as long as I remained with them.</p><p>Capt. Thompson soon joined me at this place; he came up the lake on horseback. From the place where the goods were landed on the beach, we conveyed them in a boat to Lower Sandusky [Fremont, Ohio]. Here the United States had a factory or trading house for distributing to the Indians their annuities; it was then under the charge of Judge Samuel Tupper, who afterwards resided and died in this city [Buffalo]. This trading establishment was enclosed by picket work, and afterwards formed Fort Stephenson, where Colonel Croghan severly defeated the British and Indians in 1813. A few white squatters lived around here, who subsisted principally on corn and game in the woods, and fish caught in the Sandusky River. We had left a number of men on the Peninsula, to put up log buildings for slaughtering, smoking and packing the pork and hams, and coopers to manufacture the barrels. These men I brought up the lake in the vessel with me.</p><p>At Lower Sandusky we fortunately met with four large wagons, drawn by four horses each, from the Mad River country [Urbana, Springfield, and Dayton in southwestern Ohio]. These, I believe, were the first that had ever come through. They were hired to convey our goods through to Delaware, where we intended to stop.</p><p>The road to Tymoctee Creek, 31 or 32 miles, through thick woods, had just been opened and there was no house the whole distance. Three miles beyond Tymoctee was a cluster of log huts called Negro town, inhabited by Indians, except an old Negro called "Tom," and his family, and a white man name Wright, who was married to old Tom's daughter. He was a silversmith, and made silver work for the Indians. Here commenced the openings, or prairies, which continued to the little Scioto River. These openings had clusters of bushes and trees that appeared like and were called islands. Near one of these I was shown the spot where Colonel Crawford was said to have been defeated, and the tree was pointed out to me under which he was taken prisoner. He was burned to death at the Indian town on the Tymoctee, four or five miles westerly from Negro town. Three or four miles from Negro town we came to two log buildings where an old Indian named Winne Hankie, a kind and hospitable old man, lived. From this until I passed the Little Scioto, I found no building or human being.</p><p>The river fortunately was low enough for the wagons to ford it with their loading, without being under the necessity of building rafts or floats to carry them over. We now entered thick woods, the road being very bad, and in four or five miles came to a small Welch settlement in the township of Radnor. From this place we soon reached Delaware. The country was heavily timbered all round for many miles and the settlements were in detachments in different parts. Columbus was not yet established as the seat of the State Government.</p><p>After putting up our goods in an unfinished brick building, built for a dwelling house, Mr. Thompson went into the several settlements and employed agents to buy hogs and corn to fatten them. In payment the agents drew orders on me at the store. The hogs were very wild in the woods and quite fat from the nuts and the acorns which they found. After buying them we put them into pens and fed them six or eight weeks to harden the meat. When in a proper condition nearly two hundred were brought in at a time from the different agencies to Delaware, and put together in a lot of two or three acres. Before starting the drove for the Lake shore, the drivers, who well understood the character of Ohio hogs in those days, would arm themselves with strong clubs and go into the lot and drive them round as hard as they could to tire them down so that they would drive well. With all this precaution we lost a number from each drove. They would break out and run through the woods faster than man or horse could pursue. During the winter we drove eight or nine hundred. As there were no settlements on the road to get corn to feed them, we had to send wagons along carrying it with them. Mr. Thompson went himself with two droves. That winter was colder than usual, and a good deal of snow fell. In crossing the plains, where the cold was most severely felt, the drivers at night would make up log fires, and after eating their supper, roll themselves up in a blanket, lie down before the fires and go to sleep. The great heat from the fire and the warmth of their heads, which, getting into the snow while asleep, caused it to melt; many of the drivers wore cues or long hair; this would settle in the snow, and towards daylight, after the fires began to go out, a cold blast of wind coming over the plains would freeze the snow and their hair in it, and they had to be chopped loose before they could get up.</p><p>I remained in Delaware until the last of April, 1812. I left that place with four large teams carrying property we had purchased, and eight or ten cows which I had to drive, with an old crippled negro for an assistant. While with the wagons our provisions were carried in them. On reaching Negro town I found the Tymoctee creek too high for the wagons to cross, much rain having fallen. After waiting two days for the water to fall, without success, and directing the wagons to follow as soon as they could, the old negro and myself took each a loaf of bread and a piece of pork, which we put into a blanket and carried on our backs, and thus started with the cows for Lower Sandusky. I got two Indians to aid us in the wilderness. We stopped, made a fire by flint and steel, and ate our supper, and then laid down to sleep, the cows feeding close around us. It was a long time before we could get to sleep, the woods seemed full of wolves which kept up a terrible howling and not far away. I had a small horn of powder, but no gun, and the negro said it would keep the wolves off, if we could scatter some gunpowder around and flash it, and that the smell of it would frighten them away. We did so, but it did not start them nor stop their noise, they kept it up until near daylight; when the wild turkeys began to gobble in the woods, and they made nearly as much noise. In the morning we collected our cows and started, and after traveling two days and lying in the woods two nights we got through. On the way we had to wade a good many streams, the water coming up to our middle. I caught a bad cold, and was nearly exhausted. At Sandusky they gave me a sweating. I was laid on the floor with a large blanket fastened down at the corners over me, given plenty of hot herb tea to drink, hot stones were put under the blanket and a large quantity of clothing put over me. The perspiration ran most profusely from me, and I thought I should drown. I hallooed to get up, but more hot drink and more hot stones were applied. After several hours I was let up, free from pain and as well as ever.</p><p>A boat was sent up from the Lake for me and the property I had with me. When we started to go down the river, only 36 miles, we expected to get through that night, and carried only one day's provision with us. On getting to the head of the bay, a hard north wind was blowing, and we could not cross over that day nor during the night. We ate up for supper all we had, and next morning began to be hungry, the wind still continuing to blow too strong for us to start. I had a fish hook and with some twine made a line, got some bait and tried to eat without bread or salt. The perch went well, but the more we broiled the sheep's head the tougher it became. We could not master it. This was the first as well as the last time I ever attempted to cook and eat a "sheep's head."</p><p>On the way down the Sandusky river, I passed two or three hundred newly made Indian bark canoes, they were collecting to go to Malden to sell their services or make pretense of doing so, to the British, preparatory to the war which was then close at hand. [Actually, these canoes probably belonged to Ogontz's Odawa people, who were preparing to join their tribesmen in Canada and sit out the war as neutrals. They returned to Sandusky Bay after the war but were eventually forced to move to the upper Maumee River valley]. </p><p>I waited on the Peninsula three or four weeks for the vessel to come up to carry away our pork &c. In the meantime we built a log blockhouse for the settlers to protect themselves in from the Indians. After the declaration of war the people removed, and the Indians burnt down the blockhouse. [This blockhouse may have been occupied by local militia during a skirmish in September, 1812]</p><p>When the vessel arrived, she was brought into the bay near Bull's Island [now called Johnson's Island, the site of a Confederate prisoner of war camp during the American Civil War]. We boated the pork to her until she was nearly full, and then took her over the bar outside, and boated the remainder to her. We started with a fair wind, ran over the Lake finely, and "came to" under the lee of Bird Island, at the entrance into the Niagara River. I found a regiment of volunteers at Black Rock. The same afternoon when I arrived at Black Rock, I started on foot for Lewiston, and in a few days war was declared.</p></blockquote><p></p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-5562380410820192472021-03-20T10:57:00.003-04:002021-03-20T10:57:51.812-04:00Fort Seneca and the War of 1812<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/xsOS9dp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="800" height="446" src="https://i.imgur.com/xsOS9dp.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>From <i>History of Seneca County from the Close of the Revolutionary War to July 1880</i> by William Lang (Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Printing Co., 1880) accessed on Ohio Memory (ohiomemory.org):</p><p>About the first of July, 1813, a detachment of men, under the command of Gen. Harrison, erected a stockade upon the west bank of the Sandusky river. within the present limits of Pleasant township, in this county to which was given the name of Camp Seneca.</p><p>It was situated upon a bank, about forty feet above the bed of the river, close to the old army road, and contained within its enclosure about one and one-half acres of ground. It was built nearly in the form of a square, surrounded by pickets of oak timber a foot in thick- ness and twelve feet high. Between this spot and the river are several springs of water, one of which was inside of the pickets.</p><p>On the east side were two rows of pickets, six feet apart, the space filled with earth. On the south was a single row of pickets. A little beyond this was a deep ravine. between which and the camp an embankment was thrown up, traces of which are still remaining. On the west was a single row of pickets, with a ditch about six feet deep and twelve feet wide. On the north there was also a deep ditch, with an embankment, upon the top of which were placed the pickets.</p><p>A blockhouse was erected at the southwest corner, sixteen feet high, and about twenty-five feet square, which has long since passed away . It consisted of large logs, with port-holes for cannon and small arms, and was located in such a manner as to completely command the ditch. There was a projection at the northeast corner, strongly picketed, used, perhaps, as a magazine; and two small blockhouses at each of the other corners, with port holes. The spot is one mile south of the northern boundary of Pleasant township, the section line between sections 8 and 9 running through it. There is a deep ravine on the south of the spot.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/gvX0PmW.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="800" height="221" src="https://i.imgur.com/gvX0PmW.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The town of Old Fort, Ohio is indeed one mile south of the Pleasant Township line.</i></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/J0WNscQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="800" height="446" src="https://i.imgur.com/J0WNscQ.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>(South of the site of Fort Seneca, in what is now downtown Tiffin, Ohio, stood another stockade called Fort Ball).</p><p>Nearly opposite, and west of the mouth of this stream, on the left bank of the river, where Lafayette street now strikes the same, is a large spring of excellent, cold water. This spring attracted the attention of Col. James V. Ball, when in 1813 he was about to build a stockade near the army road on the bank of the river, under instructions from General Harrison. A detachment of men, under the command of the Colonel, built the stockade and called it "Fort Ball."</p><p>...This camp was built as a temporary place of security in case of necessity, and as a magazine for supplies. It consisted of stakes a foot in thickness fixed in the ground, with old bayonets driven through them horizontally, near the tops. Against these logs were piled upon the outside, and over the logs dirt was thrown from a ditch, which surrounded the whole. There was room in the interior for five hundred men.</p><p>...While General Harrison was at Fort Seneca, he sent a detachment of men up the river to strengthen this camp. The soldiers were quartered here several days, during which time they were very short of provisions, and, being compelled to subsist on fish, a part stood guard while the rest were fishing, to protect them if necessary... Before the Battle of Fort Stephenson this detachment left for the Maumee, but the post was occupied occasionally until General Harrison left the country.</p><p>...The remains of several soldiers that had been buried near the fort were afterwards found in digging in the vicinity. One was exhumed last summer (1879?) when laying pipes for the water works in the street, about half way between the river and the stove works.</p><p><br /></p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-38134679968155940262021-02-27T10:23:00.001-05:002021-02-28T11:02:00.849-05:00A Free Man or a Dead Horse! Joseph Langford and the Underground Railroad at the Maumee Rapids<p>Last week I wrote a blog post about Captain David Wilkeson, who came to the Maumee River as a deck hand on his uncles schooner in 1815, and stayed to eventually become a successful captain and ship owner in Perrysburg. In tracing his career I found references to Joseph Langford, an African American man who served as cook aboard his ships and eventually became co owner (and thus partner) in Wilkeson's first steamship. I've been able to reconstruct some more details about Langford's life in Perrysburg during the 19th century, and his involvement with the Underground Railroad.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/jzTA1Uw.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="800" height="169" src="https://i.imgur.com/jzTA1Uw.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The approximate location of Joseph Langford's house today.</i></p><p>Langford is remembered in local history sources as "Old Joe" Langford, and in connection with an incident that occurred in 1845. His house on Mulberry Street near Front Street (described as a cabin located in an alley in one source) was on the outskirts of town but still located about a block from the waterfront and shipyards, and on the depression or edge of the gulley that runs west from the site of Fort Meigs (which passes through the town cemetery and the site of British batteries along a deep ravine). This would have been an ideal place to hustle fleeing bondspeople through on their way north to Canada: within spitting distance of the shipyards and the toll bridge over the river, but far enough from the center of town to escape notice. </p><p>Perrysburg was an abolitionist town and a crossroads for travelers passing north over the Maumee River at the toll bridge near the foot of the rapids. Not only that, but according to local history, at least one house on the river bluff at Front Street had a hidden passageway leading from the cellar to the waterfront, where a small schooner or sloop could take freedom seekers down the river and across Lake Erie to Canada. With fugitive slave laws in force nationally, it was dangerous for bondspeople to remain in the town, but several African American families, like the Williams and the Langfords, made their homes there. </p><p>On one occasion, a bondsman escaping in through the Perrysburg area was apprehended and placed in the town jail by slave hunters, pending a hearing by local magistrate Elijah Huntington. Lawyer Shibnah Spink defended the man, but although both Huntington and Spink were sympathetic to the freedom seeker, they knew the laws were not on his side and he would be taken south. According to one source, while the two officials stalled for time as they examined the slave hunter's papers, Joseph Langford went down to the shipyard where the propeller steamship Superior was then being built for David Wilkeson. He enlisted 40 shipwrights who came back with him and crowded into the courthouse, which stood where the former Citizens Bank building at 114 Louisiana Ave. As they crowded between the slave hunters and their prey, "Old Joe" made a signal and the bondsman ran for the door, helped by the workers who prevented the slave hunters from giving chase. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/o8RtZBC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="800" height="327" src="https://i.imgur.com/o8RtZBC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i>An engraving showing the Maumee Perrysburg toll bridge in 1846.</i></p><p>Langford had brought his own, apparently very fast horse to the courthouse door, and the bondsman was able to get on it and ride out of town. Joseph slapped the horses flank and shouted "a free man or a dead horse" and it sped out of sight. His horse had been on many trips to the Canadian border and would actually return on its own when released. The bridge keeper at the toll bridge between Perrysburg and Maumee, Joshua Chappel, was in on the rescue, and let the horse through. But when the slave hunters, pursuing on horseback, reached the bridge they found the gates locked. Chappel "had much difficulty in understanding the great haste of the gentlemen... and was very slow in unlocking and permitting them to pass." Three days later, the horse came back alone to Langford, and it was learned that the bondsman had made it to freedom in Canada.</p><p>It is probably inappropriate to refer to Joseph Langford as "Old Joe", because when this incident occurred, according to the 1850 census he would have been 35 years old. His wife, whom William Hodge regarded as the most ladylike in Perrysburg, was named either Hazel or Harritt (this requires more research on my part). Joseph had been born in Tennessee, and Hazel in Maryland, but not much appears in the records about their early lives before settling in Perrysburg. In 1850, 15-year old Charles Thompson was living with them. Although there is no occupation listed for them, Joseph had worked as a cook aboard Wilkeson's schooner and continued aboard the steamship <i>Commodore Perry</i>.</p><p>Working on the newer steamboats Wilkeson built would have been a big step up in terms of responsibility: the steamboats were described as "floating palaces" and the food was a major selling point in competing for passengers between Buffalo and Detroit. Langford would have gone from cooking for a dozen crew members and the occasional passenger aboard the schooners (passenger service as a rule was dominated by the more reliable steam vessels), to planning and serving elaborate multi-course meals, perhaps even negotiating for fresh produce and provisions from local farmers. Therefore local histories undersell him when they describe Joseph as a simple shipyard worker living in a cabin on Mulberry Street. </p><p>According to death records, Hazel or Harritt Langford died on December 13, 1860 and is buried in Fort Meigs Cemetery. Local records show that Joseph remarried to Mary Ann Richardson on May 20, 1863. He died in the spring of 1868 according to a probate record dated April 24 of that year, and left his property to his widow. I've not been able to find more information regarding his death or place of burial, although I imagine it was in April 1868 and his gravesite is somewhere in Fort Meigs Cemetery. I hope to continue to find more information on the Langfords and other African American people involved in the early steamship industry in Perrysburg in the future.</p><p>Most of the information in this article is drawn from the <a href="https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/siebert/id/9636">Ohio Miscellany</a>, a book of newspaper clippings found in the State Library of Ohio. The story of the horse and the courthouse is also repeated in many local histories of Perrysburg. </p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-34965887182314182712021-02-21T14:56:00.002-05:002021-02-21T14:56:20.261-05:00Captain David Wilkeson, Perrysburg's Local Sea Captain<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/YbNkJQ5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="800" height="275" src="https://i.imgur.com/YbNkJQ5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The Sidewheel Steamer General Wayne, in 1838, represents the kind of steam powered vessels that plied Lake Erie in the early 19th century. She was wrecked off Vermillion, Ohio in 1850.</i></div><p></p><p>Today my hometown Perrysburg, and its sister town of Maumee across the Maumee River, is a medium sized, middle class suburb of Toledo in Northwest Ohio. It is located about ten miles up the river from the lake, and is visited mostly by smaller motor or sailboats, which are prevented by the lower rapids from proceeding any further upstream. Few people who live there today would think of Perrysburg as being a major shipbuilding center, let alone a port. Yet in the early decades of the 19th century, the town was expected to become a major industrial center because of its location at the "head of navigation", the point on the river where boats could go no farther inland and where wagons and land traffic must pass to make the corner around Lake Erie. What stopped it from developing so was nature: a limestone shelf under the river a few miles downstream that prevented deeper-drafted vessels from making it upriver. During the days of schooners and the early steam sidewheelers, Perrysburg was not just a port town but the wide bottomlands below the town and thousands of acres of Black Swamp forests made it an ideal place for shipbuilding. As I've written in other posts, the pioneering Great Lakes sailors and sea captains were often local men who formed partnerships and built schooners to haul in passengers and goods from Buffalo, shipping out raw materials and farm products or furs. Perrysburg's main export in these early years was called "Ohio fur": bundles of white oak staves and heads for barrels piled high on the deck.</p><p>David Wilkeson came to Perrysburg from the Buffalo area shortly after the War of 1812. His uncle, a Captain James or Jacob Wilkeson, hired him on as a hand aboard the 25-ton schooner Black Snake in 1815, when he was about 15 years old. The tiny schooner brought the first band of refugees from Buffalo to resettle the Maumee Valley, and in turn took on Alman Gibbs and 40 soldiers who were the last garrison of Fort Meigs in May that year. (Gibbs soon returned, having married the daughter of settler Amos Spafford, and built a Greek revival house in what is now downtown Maumee). In 1817 while still a teenager he had assumed command of the schooner, and in 1818 was captain of the Pilot running between the Maumee River and Buffalo. Among his various sailing vessels were the 90-ton schooner Eagle, but in 1835 he launched the steamer Commodore Perry and sailed it as Captain and part owner for ten years. In 1845 he took command of the steamer Superior, and continued sailing until 1852 when he retired to his farm in Perrysburg. Even then, he took an active hand in seafaring life on the Maumee River, tending the lighthouse near <a href="https://remarkableohio.org/index.php?/category/936" target="_blank">Manhattan, Ohio</a> on Maumee Bay (near modern Point Place).</p><p>While he made his career on Lake Erie, from an early age he had made Perryburg his home, and died there in 1873. Most of what we know about him comes from the personal recollections of a friend and fellow sailor named William Hodge, who published his memoir in 1883. Hodge, too, was a lifelong Erie sailor who lived at Buffalo, New York. As the terminus of the Erie Canal, and especially before ship canals were dug to bypass Niagara Falls, Buffalo was the gateway to the Great Lakes. </p><p>There are a lot of good stories in William Hodge's book, which you can <a href="https://archive.org/details/papersconcerning00hodg" target="_blank">read in its entirety here</a>. I've transcribed a few below:</p><blockquote><p>Late in the month of November, 1833, westerly winds had prevailed at this end of the lake for about a week. Buffalo Creek had become quite filled with sail vessels, so much so, in fact, that there was but a narrow passageway left, only wide enough to allow one vessel to pass up and down the channel. Captain Wilkeson's schooner, the <i>Eagle</i>, was one of the thirty or more thus in waiting. The docks along the creek at this time were not very extensive, nearly or quite all lying below the foot of Main street... I was to take passage on the Eagle for Perrysburg, and early that morning Captain Wilkeson kindly sent a sailor out to my father's house (about three miles), to notify me that the vessel was ready to start, and was only waiting for me. I immediately rode down to the dock in a sleigh and went aboard. The <i>Eagle </i>was then quickly gotten under way. Most of the vessels that had been in the harbor were already off in the lake, and some were out of sight. We were soon beyond the pier... When fairly in the lake, with all sails set, for the wind was favorable though light, Captain Wilkeson directed the men to try the pumps, and to his great surprise found water in the hold. He therefore concluded to lay his course for Dunkirk, and kept the pumps going. He soon found that the vessel took in water when on one tack, but not when on the other. He then ordered the mate, Frank Bushaw, to lower the small boat and examine the vessel's sides. While he was doing so, I leaned over the port railing, and discovered a hole near the water's edge which had evidently been made by the fluke of an anchor while we were in the jam of vessels in the harbor. The Captain then gave orders to "about ship" and return... A carpenter was sent for, who repaired the broken plank. We then again set forth and once more were in the lake... Night set in, the light breeze continuing all night and the next day, and until almost one o'clock in the morning, when it shifted to the west, and blew a gale. The mate who had charge of the deck called to the Captain who was below, and wanted to know what he should do, as he could make no headway. The Captain turned out in a moment, and stopping half way up the companion way, asked what was the vessel's position. Being told how far we were above Cleveland, he then asked, "Can you make the lee of the islands by laying your course across the lake?" The mate replied, "I don't know." The Captain told him to "try it." He did so; and in the morning, we got under the lee of Cunningham's Island, now called Kelley's Island. I had been lying still in my berth, wide awake, all this time, as the vessel had tossed very much; but about daylight beginning to feel sea-sick, I concluded to go on deck and take the air. I did so, but the effort was too much, I was compelled to go to the rail. I hung on with both hands, and after a few heaves and surges, both the vessel and myself felt easier, as we soon got into still water. We continued our course without stopping, until we arrived at Swan Creek, now Toledo. After discharging part of our cargo at the warehouse there, we sailed up the Maumee River to Perrysburg. In consequence of this terrible gale, the <i>Eagle</i>, though the last of all that fleet of vessels to leave port, and notwithstanding the delay on account of the leak, was the first to reach her intended destination, while many of those vessels were driven on shore, the <i>Guerriere</i>, which was also owned by Captain Wilkeson, being of this number; and several were totally wrecked.</p></blockquote><p>After many years of captaining sailing vessels, Wilkeson contracted with F. N. Jones, a shipbuilder from Buffalo, to build a steamboat, the <i>Commodore Perry</i>, at Perrysburg for him. One of his shareholders, or part-owners of the ship was the <i>Eagle</i>'s cook, an African-American man named Joseph Langford. According to Hodge, Langford's wife was one of "the most lady-like and stylish women in Perrysburg." He continued to serve as cook aboard the <i>Commodore Perry</i>. One day, after most of the passengers had eaten dinner and Langford was sitting down to eat his own, he was interrupted by a passenger who had been late for dinner. Seeing Langford eating, the passenger declared he would not eat with a person of color. Langford indignantly replied "I should like to know who has a better right to eat his dinner aboard that boat than one of the owners." In later years, according to <a href="https://www.toledo.com/news/2008/07/17/intoledo/a-town-of-two-very-different-cities/" target="_blank">a 2008 article</a> I found, Joseph Langford lived in a house on Mulberry Street in Perrysburg and guided travelers on the Underground Railroad, using a fast pony by night to help them reach the Canadian border. Langford and his wife definitely deserve some more research.</p><p>Captain Wilkeson, who Hodge described as so punctual that he once cast off at the scheduled time of departure, even though he saw his own wife hurrying down the bank of the Maumee to catch the boat, even pioneered breaking the Lake Erie ice:</p><blockquote><p>In those early days of lake commerce, in the spring, or late in the winter, just before the opening of navigation, every one seemed busy along the docks in fitting out both steam and sail vessels. Sometimes, however, these would be delayed in commencing their trips until quite late in the season on account of the "ice blockade." I presume there are many now living who remember the delay caused at Buffalo by the ice, in the spring of 1837. All the vessels in the harbor had been for several weeks ready to leave, but found it impossible to get out. Boats would go out to the line of the ice and make an attempt to break through, but their efforts were in vain. They would have to work themselves back out of the jam and return to their berths in the harbor. Vessels and steamboats from the west would be seen to come down to the edge of the floating ice, and after reconnoitering would return. In this state of affairs, when Captain Wilkeson with his steamboat <i>Commodore Perry</i> came down, it being his second trip from Perrysburg that spring, he determined not to be balked at a second time, and resolved to work his way through if possible, even though it broke all the buckets on the paddle-wheels, and cut through the planking of the boat. To resolve with him was to act. He plunged into the ice, and all hands exerted themselves with a will to force the boat through. After many hours of hard labor, and a general destruction of the buckets and some of the arms of the wheels, the <i>Perry </i>emerged from the ice-pack into clear water, and in a crippled state steamed slowly up the harbor... Captain Wilkeson was the hero of the day. Through the energy and confidence he had displayed in this emergency, as in others, he had succeeded, by breaking the blockade, in setting the many captives free, for the channel made through the ice by the <i>Perry </i>remained open, ,and within an hour several sail vessels had taken advantage of it, and before the sun went down were out beyond the ice. Others continued to follow, and there was no further obstruction. The <i>Commodore Perry</i> was thus the first boat which came in the spring, arriving the 16th day of May. </p></blockquote><p>Throughout this time, his farm at Perrysburg didn't necessarily receive as much attention as his ships: </p><blockquote><p>Some of his friends at home "ran him" pretty hard, at one time, about his paying so much attention and giving so much care to his steamboat, and neglecting his homestead. They said that he kept his boat in good repair, all painted up nice and fine, but neglected his premises at home; that his house looked dusty and brown, wanted painting and brushing up. So they offered to contribute and furnish the materials if he would have this renewing done. He answered them by saying he did not believe in this half-way charity giving, and when he did a person a favor he did not stop half way, but carried it out fully. "Now," said he, "if you furnish the paints and materials and two good workmen to put it on, I will consent that you may have the job."</p></blockquote><p> All told, Captain Wilkeson sailed the schooners <i>Black Snake</i>, <i>Pilot</i>, <i>Nancy Jane</i>, <i>President</i>, <i>Superior</i>, <i>Guerriere</i>, and <i>Eagle</i>; and the sidewheel steamers <i>Commodore Perry</i> and <i>Superior</i>. Most of these were built at Perrysburg. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-59972007953709922832020-09-08T12:31:00.003-04:002020-09-08T12:34:57.514-04:00The October Gale of 1813 and the Wreck of the Schooner Chippeway<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/k23yyus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="800" src="https://i.imgur.com/k23yyus.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />From Oliver Hazard Perry to Secretary of War William Jones:<br /><br /><br /><br />U S Schooner Ariel <br /><br />Detroit 10th October 1813 <br /><br />Sir <br /><br />I am very apprehensive that the Schr Chippeway commanded by Midn. Tatem has been lost, she sailed from Put in Bay some days since with several officers and a great quantity of baggage belonging to the army. She was seen near the mouth of the Detroit River in a violent squall, since that time no information has been received from her, several trunks known to have been put on board at the Bay have driven on shore near Malden. <br /><br />I entertain also serious fears for the safety of the Ohio, Sailing Master Dobbins, it blew a most violent gale at the time he was expected from Cleveland, with a load of provisions, his not having arrived, although there has been sufficient time, almost confirms me in the opinion that she has been lost. <br /><br />These misfortunes have been attended with serious consequences to the service. The Ohio has the provisions on board, and the Chippeway the clothing for the troops which was destined for Michilimackinac. This, sir, with the near approach of winter, has obliged the Commd in Chief of the Army and myself reluctantly to give up that expedition. We have however determined to proceed against any establishments the enemy may have at Long Point. The troops are now embarking for that purpose. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Very respectfully </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I have the honor </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">To be sir </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Your Obd. Srvt </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">O. H. Perry</div><p></p><p>The loss of several ships of his fleet during an October, 1813 gale was a drastic misfortune for Commodore Perry as well as the American cause during the War of 1812. He and General William Henry Harrison had been planning an expedition to capture Mackinac from the British before the end of the sailing season. Had they succeeded, they would have completed the reconquest of the northwestern frontier and effectively ended British influence with the western Indian nations. As it happened, they were forced to call off the expedition and head to the Niagara frontier instead. Another major setback occurred when an officer carrying dispatches was washed overboard and drowned. The exact identity of this officer remains unclear, but according to a Buffalo newspaper at the time, Captain William Brown was a member of General Jacob Brown's staff at Sackett's Harbor, as well as a brother of the General. The orders he carried included timely instructions for Harrison and Perry to embark as many soldiers as they could and land them so as to cut off the British stronghold at Burlington Heights. As many know, the American failure to follow up the capture of Fort George by capturing the steep heights at Burlington, at the western end of Lake Ontario, led to the loss of all their gains along the Niagara frontier, as well as the loss of Fort Schlosser, Niagara, and the burning of Buffalo.</p><p>Here's an account from the Buffalo newspaper:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>On Tuesday last a schooner was discovered off Sturgeon Point, under bare poles, and evidently in distress. At 7 o'clock the schooner made the mouth of Buffalo Creek and anchored off---making signals of distress; having no pilot on board and the swells running too high for a boat to venture out to her relief, she lay at anchor until 11 o'clock, when the wind freshened, the schooner dragged her kedge anchor, (having lost the other) and beached 50 or 60 rods below Buffalo Creek. She proved to be the U. S. Schooner CHIPPEWA, captured from the British September 10th., Robert S. Tatem, master, who sailed from Put-In-Bay with baggage of the 27th. and 28th. Regiments U. S. Inf'y and some stores, and was bound to Malden; on the 10th. inst, within a few miles of the Detroit River, she parted with her anchor, in a storm (the sane as was felt at this place), and her sails blowing to pieces she became unmanageable, and it became necessary for the preservation of the lives of the crew, to heave overboard the baggage on deck, which was considerable, and belonged principally to the Officers of the 27th. Regt. The gale increased to such an degree, that it was with great difficulty that the schooner was kept above water. Many times during the way down, several of the crew inform us that the deck was frequently knee deep under water. The crew and passengers, consisting of about 40 persons, among whom, were three officers of the Army, and William Brown Esq., brother and aide of General Brown, at Sackett's harbor, who was on express from Sackett's harbor to Gen. Harrison; and melancholy to relate, fell a sacrifice to his imprudence, after suffering and escaping together with the rest of the crew, the fury of the storm; but a few minutes before the schooner beached, he, notwithstanding the most pressing entreaties of the officers on board, seized an oar and jumped overboard, probably fearing the vessel was going on the rocks, and thinking to reach the shore on the oar; but alas ! vain were his hopes, his strength was so far exhausted with the fatigues of the storm that he sank to rise no more. </p><p>There was no person lost, except the gentleman above stated. The amount of property lost cannot be estimated, as the contents of most of the trunks which were lost were unknown to the officers. The vessel was very little injured, and will after undergoing some necessary repairs, the first fair wind proceed up the lake. </p><p>The property in the hold was all preserved, although some damaged by the weather. </p><p> the Buffalo Gazette </p><p> Tuesday, October, 19, 1813 (quoted from <a href="https://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/details.asp?ID=49850">Maritime History of the Great Lakes</a>)</p></blockquote><p>The interesting thing about the loss of the Chippewa is that there is an eyewitness account from the memoirs of <a href="https://archive.org/details/travelsadventure00bunn/page/119/mode/1up">David Bunnell</a>, whose account of the Battle of Lake Erie I posted last time.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>After the battle on Lake Erie, three others and myself were embarked on board the schooner Chippewa, with orders to make the best of our way to Put-in-Bay. The prisoners had been previously sent on board the Niagara. We arrived at Put-in-Bay in the evening; the next day about ten o'clock, the whole sqaudron, with three prizes, came into the harbor. They were all in a shattered condition-- the Lawrence in particular, could scarcely float. The masts of the British vessels were so much shattered that they fell the first breeze.</p><p>I was ordered to remain on board the Chippewa, as second in command. She ran between Put-in-Bay and Detroit as a packet.--We made several trips--the last trip we made, we had on board forty soldiers and their officers. We proceeded to an island called the "Middle Sisters." I saw from the appearance of the weather, that we were going to have a S.W. gale, and requested the captain to remain for a while, but he refused, and we made sail and proceeded to the entrance of Malden river, but the wind was so dead ahead, that we could not get into it, and we came to anchor about three miles to the northward. About daylight the next morning, there sprang up a severe gale, and every thing around seemed to bid us prepare for a shipwreck. We thought by running down to an island called "Point-au-Plait," we could remain in safety--but on arriving, we found it impossible to run close enough to the island to enable us to get on shore, and our only alternative was to scud before the wind as long as we could find sea room. It blew almost a hurricane. I stood at the helm thirty hours--when I had become so fatigued--drenched with rain, and going without sleep--that I was compelled to give the helm to another, and take a little rest.</p><p>The violence of the waves had stove in our cabin windows, and we were obliged to stuff bed blankets in them to prevent the vessel from filling.</p><p>This was the third day of the gale, and I knew by the distance we had sailed, that we must be near the lower end of the lake. There was not a person on board that knew how to take the vessel over the rapids; consequently we concluded to come to anchor near the mouth of Buffalo creek, and remain until the next morning, and then get a pilot from the shore. We had only a small key anchor, weighing about 200 lbs. The gale had considerably abated, and so long as it should remain so, this anchor should be sufficient; and should it commence blowing with greater violence, before morning, we resolved to let her drag it until she should get below the reef, into the eddy, and then to land on Buffalo beach, which would be the means of saving all our lives, if not the vessel.</p><p>About twelve o'clock at night, the gale was renewed with greater violence than ever--the anchor, as we expected, did not hold ten minutes. As soon as the vessel began to drift, the Captain (who, by the bye, was more of an officer than a sailor,) was alarmed, and ordered the cable and mainmast to be cut. The latter would have endangered the lives of half on board, and the former would have run the vessel on Buffalo reef, where the sea was breaking higher than our mast-heads, and there would not have been, probably, a single soul saved.</p><p>In a moment I discovered our danger, and expostulated with the Captain; but it was in vain.</p><p>I knew my life, as well as those of all on board, was in iminent danger; and I saw no other alternative than to take the command myself. I represented our situation to the officers on board, who sanctioned my determination. I took a pistol in my hand, (which by the way was not loaded,) and threatened to shoot the first man who should disobey my orders. Wait, said I, a few moments, and you shall all get on shore without wetting your feet. "I shall report you for a mutineer," threatened the Captain. I cannot help it, I replied; my life is dear to me, and I wish to preserve the lives of others on board.--There was a paymaster on board who did not put confidence enough in me to pay attention to what I told him, and when the vessel began to strike heavy, was so much frightened that he jumped overboard--we never saw him again--he was the only person that was either lost or hurt. In a few minutes, the vessel was drove upon the beach, about a quarter of a mile below Buffalo creek, and we all landed safe on shore, and the next morning I went to Buffalo, where I remained until Com. Perry and Admiral Barclay came down from Erie.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-62061318219988575512020-09-03T11:16:00.002-04:002020-09-03T11:16:39.103-04:00Crowbars and Swivel Guns: a Sailor's Description of the Battle of Lake Erie<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/CeV3XWk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="500" src="https://i.imgur.com/CeV3XWk.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p>The original "Don't Give Up The Ship" battle flag. The flag as displayed today has white letters sewn onto a brown fabric, but most accounts agree that the fabric was originally blue. </p><p><br /></p><p>September 10 marks the anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie. It was the first time an American naval squadron met a British squadron in a pitched battle, and also the turning point in the struggle for control of the northwestern theater of the War of 1812. Although it was not the last naval engagement on the Great Lakes, or indeed Lake Erie, it was the last pitched battle between warships on the lakes above Niagara. </p><p>The Brig Lawrence, Commodore Olive Hazard Perry's flagship, took the brunt of the firepower of the British ships for most of the battle, as the brigs Caledonia and Niagara failed to close the range and support her. Eventually, after even the walking wounded and surgeon's assistants had been asked to come on deck and serve the last gun were themselves unable to fight the ship, Perry and and handful of remaining able bodied men manned a boat that he rowed back to the Niagara (a lot has been made of Perry moving from ship to ship in a boat, but in fact it wasn't unusual for ship's boats to move between vessels in a fleet when in combat. Perry sent his second in command, Jesse Elliott, off in the same boat to bring up the other small vessels in the squadron.) </p><p>David C. Bunnell was one of the last unwounded sailors in the Lawrence, and therefore helped man the boat and transferred to the Niagara during the height of the battle, and manned a gun on that brig. I've heard a story about a "smaller cannon" being loaded into a larger one and fired at the British during the battle--it is therefore interesting to find that Bunnell's memoir is the source of this anecdote. It is very plausible, because with smooth-bore muzzleloading cannon anything that will fit down the muzzle can serve as a makeshift projectile. In this case, the "small cannon" was a 2-pounder bronze swivel gun, a type of weapon typically mounted on a rail or up in the fighting top and crammed with small grapeshot or scrap iron for antipersonnel work. It was found after the battle aboard the British flagship Detroit.</p><p>Ironically, once Perry and his Don't Give Up The Ship flag transferred to the Niagara, the survivors in the Lawrence struck their colors to surrender; but the British never had the chance to take possession of her, before the intact Niagara was in among them with a double broadside.</p><p>From the <a href="https://archive.org/details/travelsadventure00bunn/page/116/mode/2up" target="_blank">memoirs of David C. Bunnell</a>, 1831:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Commodore Perry ordered his flag to be hoisted. We knew this flag was on board, but none of us knew what the motto was, until it was unfurled to the breeze--when we discovered the dying words of the brave Lawrence--"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"</p><p>This flag was eighteen feet long and nine broad--painted blue--the letters on it very large and white. When it was unfurled, the whole squadron gave three cheers. Every soul seemed animated by one feeling. </p><p>All were busy in getting every thing in the best possible order for the battle--the shot were got up from below--the guns well loaded and primed--and all was in complete readiness.--The drums beat to quarters, and every man repaired to his station. The words "Silence--stand to your quarters!" were given, and the signal to form a line. The wind was light, and our line was soon formed, when we bore down upon the enemy in perfect order...</p><p>There being only a light wind, we neared the enemy very slowly, which gave us a little time for reflection. Such a scene as this, creates in one's mind feelings not easily described. The word "silence" was again given--we stood in awful impatience--not a word was spoken--not a sound heard, except now and then an order to trim a sail, and the boatswain's shrill whistle. It seemed like the awful silence that precedes an earthquake. This was a time to try the stoutest heart. My pulse beat quick--all nature seemed wrapped in awful suspense--the dart of death hung as it were trembling by a single hair, and no one knew on whose head it would fall. At length there was a gun fired from the Detroit, and the action commenced. A gentle zephyr had wafted us near the enemy, and then died away--and it seemed as if old Boreas had suspended all his operations to view the fight. Our all was at stake. America had never before had an opportunity since she became a nation, of meeting squadron to squadron.</p><p>No sooner had the first gun been fired from the Detroit, than they opened a tremendous fire from their whole line, of round, grape and canister shot. The Scorpion, Tigress and Ariel, having long guns, returned their fire with considerable effect. Our vessel (the Lawrence) carried 20 guns--ten on each side-- eighteen 32 pound carronades, and two long nines. My comrades fell on all sides of me.--One man who stood next to me, was most shockingly wounded--having both of his legs shot off, and a number of the spikes from the bulwark drove into his body. He was carried below, and survived until he heard victory proclaimed--he then exclaimed, "I die in peace," and immediately expired.</p><p>The whole of the enemy's line kept up an incessant fire, and our impatience became almost insupportable, but our ever watchful Commodore knew what was best to be done, and ordered the long gun to be manned, and fired; it was done in an instant, and the shot reached the enemy.--We kept up a fire with it for a few minutes, when an order from our commander put every man in motion--"Stand by"-- a second intervened-- "Fire." I do not think there was more than a second's variation in the whole broad side--every gun seemed to speak at once.</p><p>I shall not attempt to give a perfect detail of every trivial transaction that took place after we began to fire; that would be supererogation. I paid particular attention to the gun which I had charge of, and loaded and fired as fast as possible, and at one time in a great hurry, shoved in a crowbar, and I found after the action was over that it did its duty on board the Detroit, by cutting away three shrouds of her main rigging.</p><p>At last my gun got so warm that it jumped entirely out of its carriage, which rendered it useless. Five of my men out of eight were either killed or wounded. I went to the next gun and found there but one man left, but by the assistance of my three she was soon made to play again. I could now only hear an occasional gun fired from our vessel. I looked up to see if our flag was still flying, and with pleasure beheld, partly obscured by smoke, the star spangled banner yet waving, and head Perry exclaim, "Man the boat."</p><p>I looked along the deck, and such a sight at any other time would have made me shudder, but now in the height of action, I only thought to say to myself, "poor souls!" The deck was in a shocking predicament. Death had been very busy. It was one continued gore of blood and carnage--the dead and dying were strewed in every direction over it--for it was impossible to take the wounded below as fast as they fell.</p><p>There were four embarked in the small boat with Perry, and six remained on board the Lawrence. These ten were all that remained unhurt out of upwards of one hundred. There was one brave fellow by the name of Bird, who was mortally wounded, but refused to leave the deck as long as he could be of the least service.*</p><p>On board the Niagara, to which vessel Perry went in the height of the battle, and through an incessant fire from the enemy, there was at this time but one killed and three wounded. Perry made the signal to close with the enemy--we made sail for that purpose, and were soon in close contact with the British, adn the action was renewed with great vigor. The only words I recollect of hearing Perry say were-- "Take good aim my boys, don't waste your shot."</p><p>The smoke was so dense that it was impossible to see the enemy--but we were so close to them, that by firing on a level we could not miss--their vessel being so much higher out of water than ours. The Lawrence stuck her colors for a little time, and then hoisted them.</p><p>I stooped down to get a shot, and accidentally put my hand on a small brass swivel, (it was nine inches long and would carry about a two pound ball;) it struck me in an instant that it would be a handsome present for "John Bull"--so I rammed it into my gun and let it go--it was found after the action on board the Detroit...</p><p>The action raged with great fury on both sides for some time, when Perry, finding that our ammunition began to grow short, resolved to make one finishing blow. He ran down with the intention of boarding, but the Queen Charlotte had run afoul of the Detroit, which rendered her useless, as she could not fire at us without killing her own men--while our shot took effect in both of them. Our flag was once shot away, which produced three cheers from the enemy--but they were sadly mistaken--it was soon hoisted again. In short, after a bloody and well contested conflict of three hours and forty eight minutes, the undaunted Union of Great Britain came down.</p><p>The Sloop Little Belt attempted to make sail and steer for Malden-- the Scorpion gave her chase, and, fired a "long tom" at her: the first shot struck close to her stern--the next entered her starboard quarter, and went out at her larboard bow, and she surrendered. This made the victory complete. Not a soul escaped.</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Some notes (separated in the original text in brackets) Bunnell made about the combat:</p><p></p><blockquote>During the action a shot struck a man in the head, who was standing close by me; his brains flew so thick in my face, that I was for some time blinded, and for a few moments was at a loss to ascertain whether it was him or me that was killed.--We had peas boiling for dinner--our place for cooking was on deck, and during the action a shot had penetrated the boiler, and the peas were rolling all over the deck,--we had several pigs loose on deck, and I actually saw one of them eating peas that had both his hind legs shot off-- and a little dog belonging to one of the officers, that was wounded, ran from one end of the vessel to the other, howling in the most dreadful manner.** --A hardy old tar who acted in the station of "Stopperman," (when any of the rigging is partly shot away, they put a stopper on the place, to prevent it from going away entirely,) discovering our main stay partly shot away, jumped and began to put a stopper on, and while in the act, another shot cut the stay away below him, which let him swing with great force against the mast-- He very gravely observed,--"Damn you, if you must have it, take it."--A shot from the enemy struck one of our guns, within a quarter of an inch of the calibre; little pieces of metal few in every direction, and wounded almost every man at piece. One man was filled full of little pieces of cast iron, from his knees to his chin, some not bigger than the head of a pin, and none larger than a buck shot; he, however recovered.</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>*James Bird was a Marine corporal who was wounded, but survived the battle. Despite his distinguished service during the Battle of Lake Erie, he deserted in 1814, was captured, and was executed by firing squad on the quarterdeck of the Niagara, along with a private who had deserted with him. A sailor who had deserted five times was hung from the yardarm "at the same moment." (Diary of Usher Parsons, November 11, 1814).</p>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-54677860966742931372020-08-12T10:25:00.000-04:002020-08-12T10:25:59.309-04:00Fort Fayette: General James Wilkinson's 'Country Seat'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/ldYGBAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/ldYGBAM.png" width="758" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For a frontier town, Pittsburgh was already fairly industrialized by 1811. When the 4th Regiment of Infantry stopped there en route to Vincennes Indiana, ultimately to the Battle of Tippecanoe and to captivity following the Detroit campaign in 1812, both the ordinary soldiers and the officers and their wives were charmed by the town and regretted having to leave.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Musician Adam Walker:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">At Pittsburgh we found excellent quarters, necessaries of all kinds, cheap and plenty--the inhabitants were kind, generous and hospitable-- they knew how to commiserate, and were happy in relieving the sufferings of the soldier; while we on our part were grateful for their favors, which we endeavored to merit by treating them with the respect due to good citizens. Our time here passed very agreeably for two or three weeks, at the expiration of which, we received orders to descend the Ohio river to Newport, Kentucky. On July 29, the regiment embarked on board ten long keel boats; each boat being sufficiently large to contain one company of men. With our colors flying and drums beating, we left the shore in regular order, and commenced our passage while the band, attached to the regiment, were chanting our favorite ditty of Yankee Doodle, amidst the cheers and acclamations of the generous citizens of Pittsburgh, assembled at the place of our embarkation. (<i><a href="https://archive.org/details/cihm_47613/page/n13/mode/2up" target="_blank">Two Campaigns of the 4th United States Infantry Regiment</a></i>, pp. 8-9)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While in town, the soldiers and unmarried company officers stayed at the Fort Fayette barracks, as did Colonel Boyd and most of his staff. Lydia Bacon, whose husband was serving as Regimental Quartermaster, stayed in a rented house with several other officers:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The military quarters are small and will not accommodate all our regiment. The Colonel resides with his staff at the quarters, with the exception of my husband, who prefers to live with his wife, the rest board or live in hired houses... We have plenty of servants, and those that are pretty fair, though all men. The military quarters here were built by General Wilkinson, and resemble an elegant country seat. In the rear of the house (which is both commodious and splendid), is a large garden arranged with much taste. All kinds of fruit trees, shrubbery and flowers charm the eye and please the palate, while the odors which perfume the air leave nothing which a refined taste could desire. A canal runs through this garden, over which is a Chinese bridge with seats around it. The Colonel has tea parties frequently, and entertains his company in the garden, while an excellent band at a distance and unseen discourses fine music. The whole appears like enchantment... Sometimes our band, in a boat, willl navigate each side of the village and send forth exquisite strains of music. (<i><a href="https://archive.org/details/biographyofmrsly00baco/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Biography of Mrs. Lydia Bacon</a></i>, pp. 13-14)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/vjYt02a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="663" height="503" src="https://i.imgur.com/vjYt02a.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">A plan of Fort Fayette in 1800, showing a large area devoted to the garden.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-8968604988221657302020-08-09T20:09:00.001-04:002020-08-09T20:09:28.280-04:00A Day in the Life: the 4th Infantry Regiment at Pittsburgh during the Summer of 1811.<p></p><p>In May 1811, the War Department ordered the bulk of the 4th United States Regiment of Infantry, a regular army regiment established in New England in 1808, to assemble at the Lazeretto, a large quarantine hospital or barracks outside of Philadelphia. The individual companies, raised mainly from out of work sailors, had been stationed at different seacoast forts and garrisons throughout the Northeast. Their orders were to march overland along Forbes Road across the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh. From there, the common soldiers were not told the ultimate destination. Rumor abounded that the regiment was headed for the swamps of Louisiana, an area notorious for malaria and yellow fever. Desertions increased before Lt. Col. James Miller, a trusted officer, promised the men they were not headed to the deep South. Instead, the regiment was destined for the Indiana frontier at Vincennes, where it would march under Governor William Henry Harrison in the Tippecanoe campaign. </p><p>Along the way, the 4th Regiment spent about a month at Pittsburgh. The original Fort Pitt had been torn down in the years since the American Revolution, and a new fort named Fort Lafayette, usually refered to as Fayette, was established. This post never saw a shot fired in anger but from 1795 to 1814 was the main transit point for supplies, equipment and men travelling from the eastern seaboard to any point west along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. </p><p>As Infantry Regiments go, the 4th was still a fairly young unit, but with the expansion of the regular Army during 1812, 1813 and 1814 it can be considered an "old" Army outfit. The Orderly Book of Colonel John Parker Boyd survived in the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library, and was published in 1917. Reading through it gives some insight into the day to day operations of a pre- War of 1812 infantry regiment, as well as its long travels through the frontiers of the United States. </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/QgiAZmY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="525" height="904" src="https://i.imgur.com/QgiAZmY.jpg" width="593" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Fort Fayette, Pittsburgh</i></div></div><p></p><blockquote><p>Fort Fayette, June 27th 1811</p><p>D. Garrison Order</p><p>One or more commissioned Officers will inspect their Companies on their respective parade, and receive their morning report from the orderly Sergeant in which all extraordinaries that have occurred for the last Twenty four hours are to be inserted, signed by the officer, and handed by the Sergeant to the Adjutant at orderly hours.</p><p>One Commissioned Officer of each Company to visit the Rooms of the Barracks immediately after tattoo, and report all irregularities. </p><p>Non commissioned officers of squads are to be responsible that their men have arms, accoutrements and clothing always ready for duty, and to allow no one to take his Gun to pieces without permission of his commanding officer and then only under their direction, nor to apply for a pass unless they are satisfied as to their fitness for duty. From two to four Privates may be absent from a Company at a time; their passes to be written on clean and vizable paper, to be handed to the orderly Sergeant by the non commissioned officer of the Squad, who will present it to the Commanding Officer of the Company for his signature, and then to the Adjutant at orderly hours, for the approbation of the Commanding Officer. It will then be handed to the officer of the day by the Soldier who is authorized to take it from him if he is not cleanly dressed; and in complete uniform. Non commissioned officers will apply immediately to the officer of their company and report to the Commanding Officer; and all applications must be made the evening before.</p><p>Officers waiters must have passes, and be in decent dress and not to blend the soldier with the citizen.</p><p></p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/HN95MWc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="539" src="https://i.imgur.com/HN95MWc.jpg" width="723" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>A typical barracks of the 1812 era. This is the recreated Fort Wayne, in Fort Wayne Indiana.</i></p><p> </p><blockquote><p>The Commanding Officers of Companies will be particular in the weekly inspection of the clothing, arms and accoutrements of their men and if any improper use, loss, waste or deficiency appear, it shall be reported, and a stoppage of pay made agreeable to regulation.</p><p>Fifteen minutes after Reveille the Drums and Fifes will play Yankee Doodle in front of the Barracks, when the morning drill will commence, and continue until half past six o’clock then be dismissed for breakfast, and to prepare for the Parade at half past seven. The Commissioned Officers will be particularly attentive that their men turn out at Reveille.</p><p>It is expected that the officer will attend every drill, half of the waiters will be on drills and parades; the drills for the afternoon will be ordered at the morning parade.</p><p>The Sutler will be allowed to sell (of Liquors) to each soldier one gill of whiskey and two pints of Beer at three different periods in the day.</p><p>A strict and close attention will be paid to the conduct of the Soldiers towards the citizens of this Town. Should any one be found guilty of detracting from the good character of the Regiment he will be severely punished. </p><p>A commissioned officer from each company will attend to the issuing of the rations for their men (at which time the Drum will play roast beef) and see that they are such as the contract allows; and for preserving order and cleanliness in the Garrison, and regularity in messing they will be particularly governed by Steubens. </p><p>One hour before morning parade the Drum and fife will play peas upon the trenches for Breakfast, at Twelve o’clock A. M., likewise for dinner, and one hour before retreat beating for supper, at which several beats of the drum, the rations will be cooked.</p><p>In addition to the Rolls now called there will be one at Twelve o’clock A. M. and at 4 P. M. which a Commanding Officer will attend, and the men will only be detailed to answer to their names.</p><p>Signed Jno. P. Boyd</p><p>Col. 4th Regt. Infy. C.D.</p><div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-77208316068581765702020-08-03T10:54:00.000-04:002020-08-03T10:54:04.763-04:00The Ohio Militia passes through Franklinton and Delaware, July 1813<div style="text-align: justify;">
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With his characteristic promptitude, Governor Meigs on receiving General Harrison's requisition, at once called out, <i>en masse</i>, the two divisions of militia nearest that part of the frontier, with orders to march immediately to the relief of Fort Meigs...</blockquote>
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Mr. Williams was at the time Clerk of the Chillicothe Regiment--a military officer then in existence, in the regimental staff of the Ohio Militia, with the rank of lieutenant. Instead of the privations and hardships which he endured in the campaign of the previous year (1812, with Captain Brush), Mr. Williams had now every thing that could contribute to his comfort and ease. As a regimental staff officer, he was well mounted, and was entitled to, and received transportation for his baggage-trunk, forage for his horse, two daily rations of provisions; and was a member of the Colonel's "mess," and quartered in his large marquee; and, withal, was exempt from all military and camp duty. His office was to prepare and record the regimental orders issued by the Colonel, and to record and file all brigade and general orders received by the Colonel from his superior officers.</blockquote>
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Williams' letters provided a glimpse at the progress of the march through central Ohio:</div>
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Franklinton, July 21, 1813</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
We reached this place about six o'clock this evening. The Governor and suite met and escorted our regiment into and through town, and then reviewed it, expressing himself highly pleased with its martial appearance. In the evening he visited us at our marquee, and engaged to breakfast with us tomorrow morning. General Manary's brigade--twelve hundred and fifty strong--arrived here this morning, and is encamped near us. Several regiments have already gone on to Sandusky. General Lucas, with the remainder of our brigade, from Portsmouth, will join us tomorrow. Dispatches have just arrived to the Governor from General Harrison, who is still at Seneca, nine miles above Lower Sandusky, awaiting our arrival. The enemy is still before Fort Meigs, entrenching themselves. </blockquote>
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While at Franklinton, a dispatch arrived from General Harrison urging Governor Meigs to hurry to the front:</div>
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Headquarters, Seneca Town,</blockquote>
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2nd August 1813.</blockquote>
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Dear Sir:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The enemy have been, since last evening, before Lower Sandusky, and are battering it with all their might. Come, on my friend, as quickly as possible, that we may relieve the brave fellows who are defending it. I had ordered it to be abandoned. The order was not obeyed.</blockquote>
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I know it will be defended to the last extremity; for earth does not hold a set of finer fellows than Croghan and his officers. I shall expect you tomorrow certainly. </blockquote>
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Yours etc.</blockquote>
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Wm. H. Harrison </blockquote>
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By the time the Governor's forces, estimated at 10,000 men, had reached Delaware Ohio, word reached him that the British had been defeated at Fort Meigs and Lower Sandusky (Fort Stephenson), and had pulled back. Nevertheless he determined to continue on to Upper Sandusky and establish a large camp there. In 1813, Delaware was a tiny settlement, already known for its sulfur spring on the site of the modern Ohio Wesleyan University.</div>
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Delaware was at this time a very small village. The only public house in it was kept by Major Byxbe, near the center of town, in a small brick house, very poorly fitted up, and which, we were lately informed, has recently been pulled down (in 1854). The large and celebrated sulphur spring here was then in its original state of nature. Across the morass lying between it and Byxbe's tavern the Major had constructed a footbridge, consisting of a single line of slabs set end to end, and standing on wooden legs driven into auger-holes, and having a rough hand-rail at the side. </blockquote>
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-80838553751110256422020-07-24T17:04:00.001-04:002020-07-24T17:04:23.566-04:00General McArthur in Cleveland, 1814<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.imgur.com/tmWhyfY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="354" height="320" src="https://i.imgur.com/tmWhyfY.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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<i>Brigadier General Duncan McArthur, future Ohio governor.</i></div>
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Cleveland July 28th 1814 </blockquote>
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Sir, </div>
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Two companies of the 19th Regt. arrived here from Zanesville on yesterday, and there being no water transportation they will (travel) tomorrow by land towards Erie. </div>
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Col. Miller of the 17th* is at (Lower?) Sandusky with about 350 men and the British prisoners who were at Chillicothe. I have directed him to leave the prisoners at Sandusky, and to march his troops down the lake shore until he is met by vessels to take him on board. </div>
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I rec’d a letter from Capt. Kennedy commanding the Erie fleet dated at the Town of Erie 14th Inst. from which I had reason to expect vessels ere this to take off the troops. I shall leave this in the morning for Erie, and shall continue to march the troops down the lake until they meet with vessels to take them on board. </blockquote>
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The latest accounts from Detroit state that Com. St. Clair (Captain Arthur Sinclair) passed into Lake Huron on 13th Inst. </div>
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That on the Thames 40 of our militia had a skirmish with near 200 of the enemy supposed to be militia. The enemy fled immediately thinking they were attacked by a large force. Our party took a few prisoners and a stand of colors. It is also stated that the British have now a force at Long Point and are building boats at that place, or on some of the creeks, or inlets between there and Detroit. </div>
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The communication by mail between the state of Ohio and Detroit is very tardy. Letters are frequently two weeks on the way between Detroit and Chillicothe. I am informed by the postmaster that the mail paper from this place to Washington City is four days. Would it not be well to establish a packet boat from this to Detroit? The earliest information relative to the movement in that quarter may be of the first importance. </div>
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I have the honor to be Sir, </div>
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Very respectfully, your Ob. St. </div>
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Duncan McArthur </div>
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Honorable John Armstrong </div>
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Secretary of War </div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>* Colonel John Miller of Stuebenville Ohio had been commissioned Lt. Colonel of the 17th Infantry in March 1812, and promoted to Colonel of the 19th Infantry in July of that year. Since both regiments had companies serving in various places, he is best known for leading the combined companies of the 17th and 19th infantry, along with volunteers and Kentucky militia, in a successful charge against British batteries near Fort Meigs, May 5, 1813. When the 1813 one-year regiments of infantry from Ohio were consolidated into a new 19th Regiment, Colonel Miller was transferred back to the 17th Infantry in May 1814-- thus he is referred to here as the Colonel of the 17th again. Not to be confused with Colonel James Miller of New Hampshire, who as Lt. Colonel of the 5th Regiment led the 4th Infantry into action at Detroit, and later led the 6th Infantry at Fort George in 1813, and the 21st Infantry during the 1814 Niagara campaign where he coined the famous slogan "I'll Try, Sir." Colonel John Miller served as Governor of the Missouri Territory from 1837-1843. Brigadier General James Miller served as Governor of the Arkansas Territory from 1819-1825). The newspaper John Miller founded in Steubenville,in 1806, the Herald, still exists!</div>
Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-54136449703338140722020-07-18T10:59:00.002-04:002020-07-18T10:59:46.586-04:00The Remarkable Brown Brothers: Marathon Ship Builders of the War of 1812<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The most remarkable aspect of the War of 1812 is the shipbuilding effort by the Americans on many different fronts. I've been slowly collecting research for an article about the brothers Adam and Noah Brown, who were at the center of this shipbuilding effort. The brothers ran a shipyard at Corlear's Hook on Manhatten, just across the river from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Since the Navy Yard at that time was mostly concerned with repairing existing vessels, most of the new vessels that were built in New York Harbor were constructed at the Brown's shipyard. In 1814, a local committee organized the construction of a revolutionary new war vessel, the Steam Frigate (or more propery, a floating battery) called the Demologos, invented by Robert Fulton. The Brown brothers were called on to actually build this ship for Fulton to his designs, and also built one of the first submarines, the Mute. </div>
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<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/T6W45Wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1617" data-original-width="1465" height="1294" src="https://i.imgur.com/T6W45Wi.jpg" width="1172" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The USS Demologos, renamed Fulton the First, can be seen in the background of this 1816 depiction of Marines in New York harbor. </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div>
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Noah Brown is best known for travelling to Erie, Pennsylvania in 1813 and building most of the ships of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet. He and his brother also built most of the ships of the American fleet on Lake Champlain, and were finally contracted to built the two massive 130-gun ships of the line, Chippewa and New Orleans, at Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario. If Noah Brown's recollections are true, these would have been some of the most powerful warships ever built up to that time, with 100-pounder guns on the lower deck, fifty-pounders on the middle deck, and 32-pounders on the upper deck. It seems doubtful that the Americans could have furnished this many guns, and most sources give a much smaller assortment of guns for these ships. </div>
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<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/jWexIPE.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="778" src="https://i.imgur.com/jWexIPE.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The remains of the ship of the line New Orleans in 1883: the roof on her deck is the remains of a giant "ship house", like a hangar, built to protect her from the elements. Never launched, she was carried on the Navy lists for 70 years.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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The Brown brothers had a foot in both great eras of American maritime life: they built some of the best known privateer schooners during the war; the ship sloop Peacock that became a model for American sailing warships; and they built the first steam warship and one of the first submarines. For the merchant trade, they not only took over the yard that was building all of Robert Fulton's steam packets for the Hudson, but after his death became entwined with the Livingston cartel and Noah Brown built both the first steamship Walk in the Water and its replacement, the Superior, on Lake Erie. The Brown's shipyard also built one of the first Black Ball transatlantic packet ships, which established the era of ocean liners in the 19th and 20th centuries.</div>
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<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/YUJnHP6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1204" height="578" src="https://i.imgur.com/YUJnHP6.jpg" width="770" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The Steam Ship Walk in the Water was built in 1818 at Black Rock, in the same creek where the US Navy yard was in the War of 1812. It was wrecked in 1821 and Noah Brown was given the contract to build the replacement, the Superior. It used the salvaged engine from the first steamer, and was built in Buffalo, when the locals lured Brown from building at nearby Black Rock with an offer of cheap timber.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div>
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The efforts by Brown, Henry Eckfort, and many other shipbuilders and naval officers is probably the greatest surge in shipbuilding before the Liberty Ships of World War Two, and in the sheer volume of hulls they built in so many places, in the two and a half years the war lasted, they seem to have developed a new method for mass producing ships. Not only that, but many of the designs the Brown brothers completed must have influenced post war merchant vessels, such as the China clippers.</div>
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Later in life, Noah Brown gave an account of his activities for the government as well as his childhood and early career. A transcription of his account was published in the Journal of American History, vol. 8 (1914). The original manuscript was then in the possession of his great-granddaughter, Mrs. E. W. Johnson of Washington, D.C.:</div>
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Salem County State of New York<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I, Noah Brown, was born in the County in the year 1770; remained there five years and then my family moved to a place called New Stamford [now in Delaware County, New York], about forty miles west of Soupin [Esopus?] on the head of the Delaware River; remained there till March, 1780, and then about thirty Indians commanded by Corr Brant, a great warrior, came on snow shoes to take my father’s family.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My father and three of my brothers were taken prisoners and carried off; and, the eighth day after they were so taken, my father was murdered and my brothers were carried into Niagara, where one of them was sent down the river Saint Lawrence, near Montreal, on as island called Prizer’s Island, whence he made his escape by swimming and arrived safe to our lines.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My two other brothers remained in Niagara till peace, and then they were sent home. I had two brothers who joined the army under General Washington, one of them was killed at the surrender of Mud Fort, near Philadelphia; the other brother remained in the service till his time expired, and then he shipped on board of a letter of marque and continued in that vessel until peace. My mother and five small children left New Stamford and came by the way of Albany and arrived in July at Old Stamford, in Connecticut, where her friends and relatives lived; for my part, I lived with my mother till I was about fifteen years old. I then learned the house carpenter’s trade and worked at that business till 1792; then the business became very dull and I came down to New York and worked at the house joiners’ business till 1804. I, with my brother Adam, then left New York. We went to Upper Canada and stopped at the town of New York [Newark], opposite Niagara Fort, and in that summer built a schooner called the Work for the Northwest Company.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the fall of 1804 we returned to New York, and worked with Freeman Cheeseman till the spring of 1805; then my brother and I went to Sag Harbor, and there built a whale ship for Corn Hunting. In the fall came back and went to work for George Peck, and continued with him till the year 1807.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the 4th day of July I sailed from New York to the south after live oak for the frigate New York, and after cutting her frame in or near Wilmington, in North Carolina, I returned in November to New York; then commenced working on the ship New York till March, 1808. I then left her, and with my brother, Adam, commenced the ship carpenters’ work for ourselves; continued till 18--, and then built one gunboat No. 1 for the United States, to go to Tripoli, to join our fleet there.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We then remained at merchants’ work, repairing and building, till 18--.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then we made a contract with the government to build five gunboats, and after they were completed we remained at private work till 1812.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In 1812 we were called upon by the US Government to help repair the ship of war at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, and in building the following privateers: First, the schooner Paul Jones; second, the schooner General Armstrong; third, the Prince of Neufchatel, and fourth, cut down the ship China and fitted her for a privateer, called the Yorktown.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the spring of 1813 was called on by the government to go and build Perry’s fleet.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I started from New York the 14th day of February, and with a small gang arrived in ten days at the town of Erie, on Lake Erie. The weather then was very stormy and the snow very deep.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I, with my hand full of men, made but little progress till some time in March, when I received some men from New York. We made all haste possible in getting timber and framing the three gunboats and two brigs, and I wrote to my brother for more hands (from New York). They arrived the last of April. Then we began to drive business with considerable speed, and the navy agent of Philadelphia sent on men, and they began to arrive in the beginning of May. We then became strong for hands, and drove the work. In all there had collected about two hundred men, and then we were short of iron, oakum and pitch; but there was a British schooner off in the ice. We proceeded to her and got out about twenty barrels of pork and a quantity of rigging and cables. We made oakum of them, and burned the schooner and got her iron. It helped us with the gunboats, and I rode all around to the neighboring towns and bought of all the merchants every bar of iron I could find.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The government was to send iron, pitch and oakum, but the roads were so bad that I had almost finished the fleet before any arrival at Erie.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I found great difficulty in procuring provision for my men, but with great exertion I succeeded by sending men back into the country, and then had to give a high price for it.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My men several times raised and declared they would work no longer if they could not have better fare; I satisfied them by giving them liberty to go and buy all the cattle and other provisions they could find. Several were gone four or five days, and when they came back their report satisfied them all, so I had very little trouble afterwards. I did all that man could do to procure the best the country afforded. We, all this time, were driving the vessels as fast as possible. It appeared that every man was engaged as if he was on a strife—the enemy often appeared before our harbor and several times came to an anchor within three miles of us.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our men drew arms and volunteered to protect the ship yard, but the enemy did not venture to land, and we were as willing they should not land as they; so we had no use for the arms. We had completed our vessels by the middle of June, as follows: three gunboats armed and fitted for sea; two brigs and one sharp schooner [the Ariel] for a dispatch vessel, and to look out, as she could outsail anything that was in the English fleet. All the above vessels were built by me, and furnished with all materials, and we did not receive any funds from government till March, 1814, when Commodore Chauncey came to New York and signed our bills.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I returned in July to New York, and left my foreman, Sidney Wright, with sixteen men, to keep all fleet and boats in order. The whole work that was done under my direction at Erie from the last of February to the middle of June was as follows:<br />Brig Lawrence…492 60/95<br />Brig Niagara…492 60/95<br />Schooner Porcupine…60<br />Schooner Scorpion…60<br />Schooner Tigress…60<br />Schooner Ariel…75<br />Whole tonnage of the above vessels…1239<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We built, also, a block house, 30 feet square, of very heavy timber; likewise a guard house of forty by twenty feet square; a cook house of one hundred by twenty, and a loft above to accommodate two hundred men; a blacksmith shop eighty feet long by sixteen feet deep and a house for fifty men to sleep in; an office for myself and Commodore Perry of eighteen feet square, likewise four camels about twenty ton each, fourteen boats for the use of the fleet and all their gun carriages.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In March, 1814, received orders from the government to proceed to Lake Champlain, and there build a ship and nine gunboats, and do what Commodore MacDonough throught proper, to be able to meet the British fleet on the lake. I proceeded on to Lake Champlain, to the City Vergennes, Vermont, set up a ship of 180 feet keel and 36 feet beam, which was furnished, and nine gunboats and a schooner that was set up for a steamboat; and repaired all the old fleet, and the Commodore thought he had force plenty to meet the English, and we, with all our men, returned to New York. About the last of June we received orders from Washington, to build a brig to carry twenty-four guns (long twenty fours) (on Lake Champlain); this order was required to be executed as soon as possible.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My brother started the day after the receipt of the letter with two hundred mechanics and proceeded on to Vergennes and I forwarded all the material as fast as possible, and they all arrived in time, and the Brig Eagle was put up and launched on the nineteenth day after my brother’s arrival there, and it was fifty-five days after the letter was written in Washington that the battle was fought at Plattsburgh, and the Brig Eagle was in that engagement, and I have no doubt that if she had not been there, the battle would have been on the other side victorious, and that we should have lost the fort as well as the fleet. My brother delivered the Brig to the fleet five days before the battle was fought.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In February, 1815, we received orders to proceed to Sackett’s Harbor to build, in company with Mr. Eckford, two large ships to mount one hundred and thirty guns of very large calibre; hundred pounders on the lower deck and fifty pounders on the middle deck and thirty-two pounders on the upper deck; likewise, three large-sized frigates.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Peace coming on, we did not complete our contract, but we got the large ships in great forwardness, we proceeded on to the Harbor with about 1200 men; and when we were stopped we had been at work only about six weeks, and if we had not been stopped, in six weeks longer both large ships would have been completed and in the lake. But we returned back to New York, and had not the pleasure of seeing the largest ship afloat in the inland waters of our state that was ever built.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These ships were two hundred and fifty feet on the upper deck and two hundred feet straight rabbet, and were larger than the great ship (Santissima) Trininidad (the largest Spanish warship at the Battle of Trafalgar).<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We built in the spring and winter the brig Warrior, of twenty-four guns, and only mounted twenty guns (one was a thirty-two pounder, for a shifting gun); and she made one cruise before peace, and returned to New York in May after peace, after making several reprisals. She took the ship Nickelson, of Liverpool, and the brig Dundee, both good prizes, and they both arrived here safe. The brig Warrior was commanded by Captain Guy R Champlin, and outsailed any vessel on the ocean; did sail fifteen and one-half knots per hour, and that on her return from a cruise. She delivered her cargo in the best order, and she stood in the highest estimate of all that examined her. Her prize cargoes were sold and some of the money deposited in the District Court of the United States, and was there detained in said Court to secure the United States from neutrals’ claims.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In 1814 we built a block house of forty feet square on Mill Rock, in Hell Gate, East River; likewise built the second block house at Williamsburg, on Long Island, opposite the City of New York. We likewise built a blockhouse on Rockaway Beach, south side of Long Island, and furnished all materials to complete above three block houses with accommodation for men and officers, and with good safe magazines. We likewise built a steam frigate and made no charge of services as master carpenters, and did advance cash to the committee and received Treasury notes for the money, with a promise we should not lose by them. We made no charge for use of yard to build said frigate. Therefore, as we had no profit in the concern, we ought not to lose by the Treasury notes, and we hope that the Government will consider us and make us whole.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Likewise we built a vessel called the Mute, under direction of Robert Fulton, Esq. She was bomb-proof, and was to be propelled by machinery under water. We received no compensation for our services, nor yard rent for her. Since the war we have only built one revenue cutter and one light vessel for the government.</blockquote>
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A later history (<a href="https://archive.org/details/historyofnewyork00morr/page/46/mode/2up" target="_blank">John H. Morrison, <i>History of New York Shipyards</i>, 1909</a>) gives the following list of merchant vessels completed by the Brown brothers in their Manhattan shipyard:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Frances, 1804, 292 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Swift, 1805, 289 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trident, 1805, 460 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Boneta, 1806, 263 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maria Theresa, 1807, 330 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pacific, 1807, 384 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tonquin, 1807, 269 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Phorion, 1807, 265 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mentor, 1808, 257 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">America, 1809, 493 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chinese, 1809, 301 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aricola, 1810, 283 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Colt, 1810, 228 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ontario, 1812, 527 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">James Munroe, 1817, 424 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Horatio, 1818, 865 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">China, 1819, 533 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ajax, 1821, 370 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Montano, 1822, 365 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">American, 1822, 339 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lewis, 1823, 412 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sabina, 1823, 412 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Natchez, steam schooner, 1823, 206 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Diamond, 1823, 491 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">William Byrnes, 1824, 517 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nassau, 1824, 407 tons</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Manchester, 1825, 561 tons</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>
Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-38715319356752789142020-07-16T21:54:00.004-04:002020-07-16T21:55:03.091-04:00Spring 1814: Captain Sinclair Arrives to Sort Out the Erie Naval Station<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The decisive American victory over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie was the end of large scale opposing naval operations on the upper Great Lakes. But the lakes continued to be an important area for troop movements, and the Americans were constantly worried that the British would try to regain control of the inland seas. In April, 1814, Captain Arthur Sinclair arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania to take command of the squadron and naval station there. He found the station in shambles, and several vessels sunk in Presque Isle Bay. Many of the smaller vessels of the fleet had been caught in a gale late in 1813 and were driven on shore near Buffalo. When the British launched a surprise attack along the Niagara River, they overran and burnt the town, the naval base at nearby Black Rock, and most of the beached vessels they could find. The Schooner Ariel, which was one of these vessels and had served Commodore Perry as a fast scouting vessel during the landings near Amherstburg, was said to be aground but not burnt. There is some mystery as to whether Sinclair was eventually able to repair and float her, because the ultimate fate of this vessel is unknown.</div>
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The Honorable William Jones, Secretary of the Navy, Washington City<br />Erie 2nd May 1814<br />Sir,<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yours of the 27th ult. Has this moment come to hand. I had anticipated that part of its contents which required the curtailing the indents made on the Navy agent at Pittsburg—I have however, difficulties to contend with, in order to inform myself of the state of the station, which you can form an idea of. It appears that since Mr. Hambleton left this there has been no responsible person, who’s duty it is to keep copies of requisitions, receipts, returns of expenditures &c. I am using every possible exertion, in my power to enable me to give you a correct and circumstantial account of what has been done, what requires doing, what is on hand and what required to complete the outfits of the intended expedition. You will easily see the difficulties existing, when I tell you that there is no account of the articles on hand of any description, and that they are scattered over a space of several miles. Shot are to be raked from below high water mark, covered in sand, materials of every unstored, private store houses, which have been rented, used for storing, have been so repeatedly broken into, that they are now nearly useless, therefore inventories of every article are taken before I can inform you with any degree of accuracy. From the view I have taken of things, I am very confident that system once established, there will be a saving of 25—to the public.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I shall endeavor in the course of this week to give you a general view of the station, and suggest such alteration as may appear necessary for the public good. The purchases are arriving here daily—no provision had been made for their reception, and I have been compelled, this against my inclination, to advance some from our stock, in order to get them boarded at all. There are no boats on the station, not a boat a piece for each vessel, of any description.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The small vessels are in some state of readiness, the Niagara is over the bar, but wants considerable repair, caulking entirely. The Lawrence shall pass the bar the first good weather, in the mean time her repairs are going on. The Lady Prevost, a vessel only 72 feet on deck and 10 feet beam was altering into a brig. The course masts only are prepared, I have stopped the alteration, not only on account of expense, but also she will not answer for the upper Lake, her draft is 2 feet more than our brigs. The Hunter is sunk with a quantity of powder and stores in her, much of which is damaged. The Amelia is in the same situation. I am now getting them on float, and saving what can be saved from them. The report is that they are rotten and unfit for service. A survey shall be held and a report made accordingly. The prize ships arrived last night. I have not yet visited them. Their safety &c shall be immediately attended to. They have considerable quantity of powder and ordnance stores on board, full sufficient, I fancy, with what we have on hand, to answer all our purposes.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am much pleased at the prospect of some officers of experience being on their way here. None however have arrived yet; I would suggest that an old and experienced Purser be ordered to this station. One of that description would answer all purposes. Mr Harris, Mr Hambleton, or one of their standing. A Master Commandant also of considerable experience, and who has system about him, will be surely necessary during my absence. I trust, Sir, that in my duty I shall not make unfavorable impressions in regards Capt. Elliott. He is very young as a Commander, has had but little experience, surely none to justify the difficulties he has had to contend with here. They have been many and of magnitude.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have not yet heard from Detroit, but as the same vessel which carried my orders for bringing the ships also took my dispatches for that place, I shall expect fair fresh wind.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The vessels which were on shore (except the Ariel) burnt. She, I am told, is a fine vessel, and lays four miles this side of Buffalo, uninjured. There is a considerable quantity of sea yet between this and her. I shall however send down immediately and request Genl Scott, who is in her neighborhood, to have her protected until I can make the necessary arrangements for getting her on float, which shall be in the shortest possible time.<br />I have the honor to remain<br />Sir, with high respect<br />Your Obd Servant<br />A. Sinclair</blockquote>
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-85591839045910308662020-07-13T10:23:00.001-04:002020-07-13T10:23:22.076-04:00The Short-Lived Schooner Tempest, of Ashtabula Ohio<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/2dfEXBj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1322" data-original-width="2048" height="413" src="https://i.imgur.com/2dfEXBj.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>An image of a Hudson River sloop from the mid 1810s, similar to the small vessels that plied Lake Erie at the time.</i></div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The State of Ohio,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">County of Erie</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">B.A. Napier</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Subscribed and sworn before me, the day and year first above written.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zenas W. Barker,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Justice of the Peace</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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 <i>Union</i> and the steamships <i>Walk in the Water</i> and <i>Superior</i> 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. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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 <i>Niagara</i> and the schooner <i>Porcupine</i> operational by the end of 1814. He found it necessary to launch a new, small schooner, the <i>Ghent</i>, 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. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=-0VHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA102&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2pJcw8Lu6W-VwNdYRFclUb9H11Pw&ci=49%2C707%2C932%2C113&edge=0" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="65" data-original-width="536" src="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=-0VHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA102&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2pJcw8Lu6W-VwNdYRFclUb9H11Pw&ci=49%2C707%2C932%2C113&edge=0" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">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:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><blockquote>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. (<a href="https://www.rbhayes.org/collection-items/charles-e.-frohman-collections/camp-john-g.-jr./">Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Finding Aid</a>) </blockquote></div>Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-25438219363430716212020-07-12T20:52:00.002-04:002020-07-12T20:52:36.121-04:00The Great Middle Sister Island Leek Hunt of 1813<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Middle Sister Island is one of the three sisters, tiny dots of land that sit in the shallow Western Basin of Lake Erie formed by the Bass Islands, Pelee and a number of others. It has been uninhabited except for seabirds for millennia. A 9.5 acre landmass, it's moment of fame came when General William Henry Harrison's Northwest Army used Middle Sister as a jumping off point for his amphibious landing on the Canadian shore. Apparently, there was a type of leek growing naturally. Here is Sergeant Alfred K Brunson's description of what happened when the soldiers found edible plants growing in their midst:</div>
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The army moved from Put-in-Bay, in open boats, accompanied by the shipping that had not been crippled in the battle, unto the middle sister island. Here the troops under General McArthur, from Fort Meigs, met us. That little island was alive with men; said to number fifteen thousand. We had not been long on it before some one discovered leeks, a kind of wild onion; and we having been so long without any vegetable of the root kind, were all eager for something besides bread and meat. As soon as the discovery was made, the news of it spread like wild-fire, and every man that could was scratching and digging with his fingers, scalping-knife, or a stick, and probably in fifteen or twenty minutes the whole island was dug over. I got about have a dozen, which I relished with a zest.</blockquote>
General Duncan McArthur, in command of one of the two brigades of regular infantry regiments assembled on the island, used the time the army spent on Middle Sister to reorganize his men, but also had to contend with soldiers shooting their weapons without orders.<br />
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Camp on the Middle Sister Sept. 24 1813<br />Brigade orders. The troops of my Brigade will be prepared to embark at any moment when called and after the following manner. Each man will take with him his arms one blanket and provisions only the baggage knapsacks and camp equipage and sick of each regt. will be left in tents pitched for that purpose. The women and a suitable number of men as nurses will all be left. A report of the strength present of each company will be immediately handed in to the brigade major.<br />Signed Duncan McArthur<br />Brig. Genl. USA<br /><br />Camp on the Middle Sister Sept. 25 1813<br />Brigade orders. It is my wish that the companies of the several regts comprising my brigade will be arranged as to from platoons of equal size and strength and for that purpose until further orders Colonel Wells will cause 15 men in Capt Holt’s Company to be attached to the command of Capt. Bradford. Colonel Miller will cause 8 men of Capt. Elliot’s Company to be attached to the command of Capt. Herring and five men from each of Capt. Langham’s and the late Nearing Companies to be attached to Capt. Chunn’s. Also one subaltern from Capt. Herring’s Company to be attached to Lieut. Lee’s who will command the late Capt. Nearing’s Company.<br />…<br />From the heads of companies in sections and in order to be prepared to act in that way each company in the camp will by the commandants of the regiments will (illeg.) into two sections and officers stationed to the (illeg.) of each and (illeg.) that no officer or soldier will be (illeg.) either on the march or in incampment from his company or the section to which he may be assigned unless from urgent necessity and should from any cause the present number of men reported in each company be augmented or diminished the commanding officers of regiments will be careful to have them so arranged as to comply with the intention of the above order. The genl. Cannot help expressing his astonishment at the number of guns which have been fired in violation of orders and that no names have been taken by the officers to punish the offenders. The commandants of regiments will endeavor to ascertain from what vessel flints and ammunition can be procured of which there appears to be a deficiency and have each man supplied with two spare flints and his box filled with cartridges.<br />Lieut. Sanders is appointed extra aide de camp to Genl. McArthur and as such will be obeyed and respected.<br /> Signed<br />By Command<br />D Gwynne Brig. Aid Maj.</blockquote>
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My guess is that soldiers were trying to supplement their diet a bit further by shooting at the local wildlife...</div>
Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-39792422197587415032020-05-18T11:54:00.001-04:002020-05-18T11:54:10.649-04:00An Account of the Battle of Fort Stephenson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Continuing the Brunson memoir, which has some interesting perspectives on the Battle of Fort Stephenson from someone who was with Harrison's main force at Fort Seneca, a few miles up the Sandusky River:<br />
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While in this camp I so discharged my duties that on drill I was placed at the head of a platoon, in place of a commissioned officer; and I was so correct and full in my returns and reports as to be favorably reported to General Cass, who commanded our brigade, upon which, unsolicited, he promised me a lieutenancy. But, as the privates died off faster, in proportion, than the officers, no vacancy occurred, and I was left to serve out my time as I was.</blockquote>
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While at Seneca, the Quarter-Master Sergeant asked me, one day, if I was not a Methodist. "Why," said I, "what makes you think so?"</blockquote>
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"Well, you mind your own business, perform your duties punctually, but never join in the amusements of the men, nor use any of their bad language."</blockquote>
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"Yes, I am a Methodist."</blockquote>
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"Ah!" said he, "you will not be that long here."</blockquote>
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"Why," I inquired, "are we not engaged in a lawful and honorable war? And why can not a man enjoy religion in the army, in such as case, as well as anywhere else?"</blockquote>
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"That is all true," he said; "but as none, or very few, have done so, I conclude that you will do as the rest have done."</blockquote>
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"Then," said I, "by the help of God I will make one exception; for I despise a man who will not maintain his integrity in the army, as well as any other lawful employment."</blockquote>
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During the ensuing Winter this Sergeant was home on furlough, or the recruiting service. When he returned in the Spring to Detroit, at our first meeting, he said, "Well, Sergeant, I have made inquiry about you since my return, and am glad to find that you have kept your word, and maintained your religious integrity. It is an honor to you, and you are the more respected for it."</blockquote>
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As I was now situated, my only opportunity for secret prayer, in form, was after all the men had retired. It was part of my duty to see that every non-commissioned officer and private soldier in the company was in his tent at tattoo, or nine o'clock, P.M.; and , as all was then still, I retired behind the breastwork, and had my formal secret devotions, being obliged to do it mentally at other hours of the day. I had my Bible with me, and read a portion of it every day; and, finding a few men who had once had some knowledge of religion, though now in a backslidden state, I conversed with them on religious subjects, as often as opportunity occurred. </blockquote>
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As before stated, the country was infested with Indians, accompanied by British regulars, and we expected an attack every night, for ten days. General Harrison said that his spies reported five thousand regulars, and six thousand Indians, on the way for that purpose; and knowing that his army of twenty-five hundred men could not resist eleven thousand, he had made a requisition on Governor Meigs, of Ohio, for four thousand militia, who were on their march to assist us. But the spies reported that the enemy had left Fort Meigs, on the Maumee River, and were heading toward our camp. In view of the near approach of the enemy, the General thought it prudent to fall back toward Upper Sandusky, till he met Governor Meigs, with his reinforcement, and then return to the fight; but he could not retreat and leave Major Croghan at Fort Stephenson, with one hundred and forty-three men, where, with such a force against them, they must be cut off.</blockquote>
[Any casual student of the War of 1812 will recognize that these numbers are all out of whack-- General Procter's army never numbered over 800 men, and the Indians under Tecumseh not much more than that. The Americans outnumbered the British and Indians at nearly every engagement during the 1813 campaign. Harrison's apparent cowardice during the second Siege of Fort Meigs and the attack at Fort Stephenson, was probably due to two factors: one, that his troops at Fort Seneca were mostly raw recruits from the one-year regiments, the 26th, 27th, and 28th Infantry, and two, he expected the attack on Fort Stephenson to be bait to lure him into a trap-- marching out of his entrenchments at Fort Seneca, Harrison's army would get pounced on by Tecumseh and his Indians.]<br />
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The General, therefore, sent an express to the Major to burn his fort, and every thing in it that his men could not carry on their backs, and retreat on the east side of the river, so as to be at Seneca at reveille the next morning. But it so happened--fortunately, as it turned out--that the express missed his way, got lost in the woods, and did not reach the Major till the next day, at ten o'clock, A.M.</blockquote>
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In the meantime everything was prepared at Seneca for a retreat at reveille that morning. All the provisions, stores, tents, and everything that could not be carried on men's backs, were to be burned. The men were supplied with extra rations, to eat on the way, and but little sleep was had during the night. But morning came, and no troops from the little fort. It would not do to retreat, and leave them. A council of war was called to decide what should be done. The men were restless, and discontented at the idea of a retreat; and the officers seemed to be of the same state of mind; all preferring to meet the enemy at our breastworks, and try our skill and fortune in a battle, despite the odds in numbers. At length, when General Cass was asked his opinion, he said, "General, you are in command; you must do as you think best." "But," said Harrison, "two heads are better than one, and I want your opinion." "Well, it is my opinion, then, that we would better not retreat till we see something to retreat from." This settled the question; and every man was set at work to strengthen our defenses, and prepare for the worst.</blockquote>
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The Major, knowing that the failure of the express to reach him in time to obey the order, would thwart the General's designs, and that he must wait for further orders; and as his own spies had reported only hundreds where the General's had reported thousands, he believed that he could defend the little fort, if attacked, before another order could be received. As he had to wait for further orders, he sent the express back, with this letter: "I have men enough, ammunition enough, and provisions enough; and damn me if I quit the fort."</blockquote>
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The express reached headquarters, with this insolent letter, about sundown. The General, of course, was nettled. The Major was a pet of his; had been in service with him through the war, from Tippecanoe to this time; and to get such a letter from his pet, was rather too much for friendship to bear; and, besides, subordination must be preserved, or the army would be ruined. So, the next morning, Colonel Wells was ordered to the command of the little fort, and Colonel Ball, with his two hundred dragoons, was ordered to escort him down to it, and bring up Major Croghan under arrest. About noon the order was executing, and the little Major, only nineteen years of age, was brought into camp a prisoner.</blockquote>
[The Major was actually 22 years old]<br />
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The General was, naturally, very nervous, and excitement very much quickened his motions and his words. When the Major appeared before him he sprang to his feet, and with vehemence, said, "Major Croghan, how came you to send me that insolent letter?"</blockquote>
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"Why, General, didn't the express explain it?"</blockquote>
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"Explain it! What explanation can be given to such a letter as that?"</blockquote>
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"Why, General, didn't he tell you that he didn't get there till yesterday morning, at ten o'clock?"</blockquote>
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"Yes, he told me that. But what has that to do with this letter?"</blockquote>
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"Why, you know I couldn't evacuate the fort, and get here by reveille of the morning previous."</blockquote>
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"Of course not."</blockquote>
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"Well, I knew that your plans must be thwarted, by the circumstance, and that I must wait for further orders; and, believing that I was completely invested by the enemy, and that the express and the letter would fall into his hands, I determined, if it did, to send him as bullying a one as possible. But I told the express, the damned rascal, that if he got through with it, to explain it to you. Didn't he do it, General?"</blockquote>
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"No, he didn't."</blockquote>
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"Why, General, you know that I understand my business, and the duties of a subordinate, too well to send you such a letter, under <i>any </i>other circumstances." </blockquote>
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"Why, certainly, I thought so; and that was the mystery of the case. But how could I understand it without an explanation? and with this I am satisfied." And before night the Major was restored to his command, and Colonel Wells recalled to his.</blockquote>
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There were some speculations among the officers as to the Major's explanation. Some thought that he believed his own spies to have correct numbers of the enemy, despite the report of the General's spies, and that with his advantages he could whip them, and that he expected the attack before the General could arrest him; if successful, the victory would place him above censure; if not, it would make no difference, as he would be either dead or a prisoner. But the most probable reason for his course was that given be himself, though he disapproved of the proposed retreat. As the matter turned out, in two days after his return, he fought the memorable battle of Fort Stevenson, having but one hundred and forty-three men to repulse eleven hundred of the enemy. Of the British regulars, some fifty were killed in, or near, the ditch; but of the wounded no report could be made, as they retreated. But soon after the battle a British surgeon came, with a flag of flag of truce, to attend to their wounded, expecting to find at least one hundred and fifty, as but three hundred of the five hundred that left Malden got back to it, showing a loss of two hundred, somewhere. On this information the General sent out Indian scouts to scour the woods between the little fort and the lake. They picked up and brought in about twenty, and reported a large number of dead bodies, and bones, and uniforms, indicating the death of as many, who perished in their retreat....</blockquote>
[Here Brunson explains that as it turned out, General Procter was expecting to capture only the stockade at Fort Stephenson, in part for flour and provisions he needed for his army, and for the morale boost of another victory against the Americans. But when his scouts reported that the Americans were encamped at nearby Fort Seneca, with 2500 men, he realized that he had to end the siege quickly and decided to attack the fort directly. What's more, Procter had bombarded the stockade with field artillery (six-pounder guns and 6-inch howitzers) and thought the wood pickets had been weakened. The American six-pounder gun, "Old Betsy", had been removed from its original position in order to make the British think it had been dismounted-- instead it was secretly placed in a blockhouse near the "weakened" section of pickets in position to rake the ditch. With a double charge of canister, it swept the entire length of the ditch several times and effectively ended the British charge.<br />
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...While the battle was raging at Fort Stevenson, the booming of the cannon reached our ears at Seneca, and our men showed unmistakable signs of uneasiness and discontent at the thought of so many of us having no part in the fray. Some mumurings would break out, because they were not led to the scene of action, and some fears were expressed as to the fate of that little band of brave men. It was but a few hours, however, until the suspense was at an end, for a foaming steed came into camp, and the rider handed a letter to the General, giving a brief statement of the affair, and then followed a deafening roar of shouts and rejoicing. </blockquote>
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-34453467887977267962020-05-10T10:44:00.001-04:002020-05-10T10:44:52.649-04:00Another Maritime Adventure on Lake Erie-- Braving a Storm in a Leaky River Barge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Early in 1813 there was a debate between American naval officers whether the US fleet on Lake Erie should be built at Black Rock, near Buffalo New York or at Erie, Pennsylvania. There were disadvantages to both places. Erie was only a small village with no facilities for shipbuilding, and no defenses. A sandbar across the mouth of the sheltered bay there prevented any vessel larger than a gunboat from sailing out into the lake. Black Rock (which is now more or less subsumed into modern urban Buffalo) was the site of the existing US shipyard on Lake Erie, and a brig and several smaller ships had already been gathered there by Lieutenant Jesse Elliot. However, it's disadvantages were even worse: the guns of British batteries on the Canadian side of the Niagara River could range the shipyard, and the strong river current meant that any vessel launched there would have to be towed upstream by teams of oxen--again under the guns of the British forces. And it was within easy reach of any British raiding parties from the opposite shore who could burn up several months work with a surprise attack.<br />
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Sailing Master Daniel Dobbins was an early resident of Erie and had sailed there with his schooner Salina before the war. He thought that ships could be built in the sheltered bay and, once ready could be gotten over the bar and into the lake. But to arm them, cannon had to be brought from the naval station at Black Rock, and British ships patrolled the lake. This meant that Dobbins spent the spring of 1813 essentially smuggling large pieces of ordnance over stormy waters past the British ships. Here is one such journey, which probably occurred in May of 1813 (from Captain William W. Dobbins, <a href="https://archive.org/details/historyofbattleo00dobb/page/16/mode/2up">History of the Battle of Lake Erie</a>, 1876):<br />
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As a sample of one of these hazardous trips, he started to bring up two long 32-pounders, weighing 3,600 pounds each. In the way of a craft, he was only able to procure an old "Durham boat", so-called, which had been used to boat salt from (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Schlosser">Fort) Schlosser</a> to Fort Erie; and after fitting her up as best he could, with timbers placed lengthwise in her bottom, got the guns on board, tracked up the rapids of Niagara River and started for Erie, having a four-oared boat in company. He kept near the American shore, but dare not show his sail except at night. When off <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattaraugus,_New_York">Cattaraugus</a>, in the night, it came on to blow heavily from northwest, and in order to keep her off the beach, they made what sail they could with two planks for leeboards, and, after a struggle, succeeded in getting an offing. But their troubles were not ended: the great steering-oar unshipped, and the boat fell off into the trough of the sea. The heavy rolling soon carried away the step of the mast before they could get the sail down. But the repairs were soon made and they got sail on again, when it was found she was leaking badly, caused by the heavy rolling, with so much weight in her bottom, and likely to founder. As the old maxim has it, "Necessity is the mother of invention," Mr. Dobbins took a coil of rope they had on board, and passing the rope round and round her, from forward to aft, and heaving the turns taut with a gunner's hand spike, thus managing to keep her afloat, with all hands bailing. At daylight they found themselves some ten miles below Erie, with two of the enemy's cruisers in sight in the offing to windward. However, the wind had veered more to the eastward, and they made port with a fair wind--their consort, having parted company with them in the night, safely made port, and reported Mr. Dobbins' boat lost.</blockquote>
Durham boats are most famous for having been used by George Washington in his crossing of the Delaware River. They were designed for use with heavy cargo, such as the pig iron shipped on the Delaware River from the Durham Ironworks.Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-32947854979993068562020-05-08T04:54:00.001-04:002020-05-08T04:54:23.976-04:00Captain Leslie Combs' Ill-fated Canoe Trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Very few motorists crossing the Maumee River today on the Interstate 475 Bridge may realize, if they glance downriver towards Maumee and Perrysburg and the Buttonwood Recreational Area, that they are looking at the site of a terrifying adventure during the Siege of Fort Meigs. This is an extract from the <a href="https://archive.org/details/narrativeoflifeo00np/page/n1/mode/2up">Narrative of the Life of General Leslie Combs</a>, a veteran of the battle:<br />
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When they reached St. Mary's Blockhouse, General Clay divided his brigade, sending Colonel Dudley's regiment across to the Auglaise River, and descending the St. Mary's himself, with Colonel Boswell's, intending to united them again at old Fort Defiance. Captain Combs was attached to the former... It was fifty miles from Fort Defiance, where they expected to meet General Clay, to Fort Meigs; and it was deemed extremely hazardous for any one to attempt to open a communication between the two points, especially as no one present, except Captain Combs, knew the exact position of Fort Meigs, or had any knowledge of the intervening country.... (At a council of officers Captain Combs volunteered) "Colonel Dudley," said he, "General Clay has thought proper to entrust me with an important command, attached to your regiment. When we reach Fort Defiance, if you will furnish me a good canoe, I will carry your dispatches to General Harrison, and return with his orders. I shall only require four or five volunteers from my own company, and one of my Indian guides to accompany me..." </blockquote>
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The troops encamped at Fort Defiance (Fort Winchester) on the afternoon of the first of May. General Clay, meanwhile, had not arrived. Captain Combs immediately prepared for his perilous trip. The two Walkers, Paxton, and Johnson, were to accompany him, as well as the young Shawanee warrior Black Fish. As they pushed off from shore at the mouth of the Auglaise, the bank was covered with their anxious fellow-soldiers; and Major Shelby remarked, looking at his watch, "Remember, Captain Combs, if we never meet, it is exactly six o'clock when we part;" and he had since told Mr. Combs that he never expected to see him again alive.</blockquote>
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Captain Combs would have started some hours earlier, could his frail craft have been gotten ready for he knew it would require hard work, even with the aid of a strong current, to reach Fort Meigs before daylight the next morning. Placing his Shawnee in the stern, with a steering-oar, and two men at the side-oars, alternately relieving each other, the Captain took his position in the bow, to take care of their rifles and direct the course to be pursued; keeping as nearly as possible in the center of the stream, for fear of Indians on either side. By dark they had come within distinct hearing of the distant roar of heavy artillery in their front, and knew that General Harrison's apprehensions of an early assault upon his enfeebled position were verified.... </blockquote>
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It was late in the night when they struck the head of the rapids, and it seemed every moment as if their light canoe would be dashed in pieces. By lying flat on his face, the Captain could from some idea of the course of the deep channel, amid the war of waters which nearly deafened them, by seeming the foaming breakers glistening in the starlight. When they approached Roche debout, where they were informed there was a considerable perpendicular fall in low water, they were forced to land and haul their bark along the margin of the southern bank till they had passed the main obstruction; and daylight dawned upon them before they were again afloat. They were still some seven or eight miles above the fort, and well knew that the surrounding forests were alive with hostile savages...</blockquote>
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(The next morning) If he should determine to remain where he was during the day, they would most probably be discovered and tomahawked before night. He therefore resolved resolved instantly to go ahead, desperate as the chances seemed against him, and risk all consequences. Not one of his brave companions demurred to his determination, although he told them they would certainly be compelled to earn their breakfasts before they would have the honor of taking coffee with General Harrison.</blockquote>
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(As they rounded the last bend in the river before Fort Meigs, not knowing if the fort had surrendered...) the first object that met their sight was the British batteries belching forth their iron hail across the river, and the bomb-shells flying in the air; and the next moment they saw the glorious stars and stripes gallantly floating in the breeze. "Oh, it was a grand scene," writes Captain Combs. "We could not suppress a shout; and one of my men, Paxton, has since declared to me, that he then felt as if it would take about a peck of bullets to kill him." Captain Combs had prepared every thing for action, by handing to each man his rifle freshly loaded, and in the mean time, keeping near the middle of the river, which was several hundred yards wide, not knowing from which side they would be first attacked.</blockquote>
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He hoped that General Harrison might now and then be taking a look with his spyglass up the river, expecting General Clay, and would see them and send out an escort to bring them in... At first they saw only a solitary Indian in the edge of the woods on the American side, running down the river so as to get in hail of them; and they took him for a friendly Shawanee, of whom they knew General Harrison had several in his service as guides and spies. His steersman himself was for a moment deceived, and exclaimed, in his deep guttural voice, "Shawanee," at the same time turning the bow of the canoe towards him. A moment afterwards, however, when he raised the war-whoop, and they saw the woods full of red devils, running with all their speed to a point on the river below them, so as to cut them off from the fort, or drive them into the mouths of the British cannon, Captain Combs' young warrior exclaimed, "Pottawatomie, God damn!" and instantly turned the boat toward the opposite shore. </blockquote>
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The race between the little water party and the Indians was not long doubtful. The latter had the advantage in distance, and reached the point before the former. Combs still hoped to pass them with little injury, owing to the width of the river and the rapidity of the current, and therefore ordered his men to receive their fire without returning it, as he feared an attack also from the near shore, which would require all their means of resistance to repel. If successful, he should still have time and space enough to recross the river before he got within range of the British batteries, and save his little band from certain destruction. The first gun fired, however, satisfied him of his error, as the ball whistled over the canoe without injury, followed by a volley, which prostrated Johnson, mortally wounded, and also disabled Paxton; not however, before they had all fired at the crowd, and saw several tumbling to the ground. Captain Combs was thus, as a last hope, forced to run his craft ashore, and attempt to make good his way to Fort Meigs on the north side of the river. </blockquote>
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To some extent they succeeded. The two Walkers soon left the party, by the Captain's order, to save themselves; the Indian nobly remained with Paxton, and helped him along for six or seven miles, until he was so exhausted with the loss of blood as to be unable to travel farther. Captain Combs was less fortunate with poor Johnson, who, with all his aid, could barely drag himself half a mile from their place of landing, and both he and Paxton were very soon captured and taken to General Procter's head-quarters. They even reported, as was afterwards learned, that they had killed the Captain, and showed as evidence of the fact his cloth coat, which he had thrown off, putting on in its stead an old hunting-shirt, after he left Johnson, so as to disencumber himself of all surplus weight. </blockquote>
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His woodcraft, learned in the previous campaign, now did him good service as it enabled him to elude his pursuers; and after two days and nights of starvation and suffering, he again met Major Shelby and his other friends, at the mouth of the Auglaize, on the fourth of May, in the morning, after all hope of his return had been given up. The two Walkers were a day ahead of him, and his brave young Indian succeeded in making his way to his native village.</blockquote>
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By the time Captain Combs made it to Defiance, a courier from the Fort had also arrived-- Captain William Oliver, who had already made a name for himself by slipping through the Indian lines to deliver a message during the Siege of Fort Wayne (from an <a href="https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll33/id/5978">anonymous account written by a veteran</a>):<br />
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The necessary preparations were made, and at the hour of midnight (a dark & dismal night in Apr. 1813) a young soldier was seen to issue from one of the Gates of Ft. Meigs then closely besieged by a numerous Army of savages,"who environed the Ft. and through whose encampment our young friend had to pass; He moved on with slow, steady, but cautious steps, frequently in his passage through the almost numberless camp fires of his wary foe at the breaking of a stick by his horse tread or any, even the slightest noise, Indian warriors would be seen on every side, springing half up, is listening attentively, to learn from whence the noise had come, Intense indeed must have been the feelings of our friend; thus surrounded by vigilant and deadly foes; He told me, in conversing lately about this interesting moment ""that his horse seemed to feel the responsibility of the situation in which they were placed —and stopped when a twig would crack"soon the Indians would become satisfied & again lie down; when suspicion was lulled he would again proceed - & thus by slow cautious movements this miraculous passage through the Indian encampment was effected, and the dispatches, so important to our Garrison delivered to Genl. Clay, who by the same intrepid messenger, returned an answer to Genl. Harrison; He descended the river in a canoe with muffled oars, accompanied. by Col. David. Trimble of Ky. afterwards, aid to Genl. Harrison, & subsequently a distinguished Member of Congress from Ky. The writer had command of the guard, who were stationed at the center gate of the front line of the Fort and had the pleasure of receiving his friends at a late hour of the night & conducting them to the Genls. headquarters.</blockquote>
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Combs was barely recovered from his ordeal when General Clay, having by now arrived with Colonel Boswell's Regiment from the St Mary's River, ordered his troops into 18 flat bottomed boats, to descend through the rapids and land around Fort Meigs. He lay sick in the boat, but when Dudley's Regiment landed on the opposite side of the river, he again took command of the scouts and provided a light infantry screen for the regiment as it captured the British batteries. Subsequently his company was drawn into a fire fight in the woods behind the British batteries by Indians there. Colonel Dudley, unwilling to leave them behind, ordered his disorganized regiment to support them, and was trapped by British and Indian reinforcements in what became known as "Dudley's Massacre". Captain Combs survived the battle, and capture by the British, to return home to Kentucky, where he died in 1881.Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-78731572625447014562020-04-30T10:16:00.002-04:002020-04-30T10:16:20.818-04:00Scenes from the Siege of Fort Meigs, April 30 1813<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Captain William Sebree's Map of Fort Meigs. Though crude, this is the best contemporary drawing of the fort, showing the traverses, magazines and "bombproof" dugouts made by the men during the siege. "Gratiots Battery" was built between the first and second sieges. Note the box with the dot in the middle situated on the Rear Traverse. This represents a man calling out "shot" or "bomb" to warn the garrison during the bombardment.</div>
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On April 28, 1813, a force of British and Canadian soldiers and Native Americans led by General Henry Procter and Tecumseh, respectively, landed on the banks of the Maumee near Fort Meigs and prepared to lay siege to the American camp. According to the history of the war written by Robert B McAfee:<br />
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The British had established their main camp about two miles down the river at teh place of their landing; and in the night they had commenced three batteries opposite the fort, on a high bank about 300 yards from the river, the intervening low ground being open and partly covered with water. Two of them were gun batteries with 4 embrasures, and were situated higher up the river than the fort; the other was a bomb battery situated rather below the fort. They had progressed so far in the night that they were now able to work at them in the daylight. A fire however was opened upon them from the fort, which considerably impeded their progress. It was under the directions of Captain Wood, the senior officer of the engineers, Captain Gratiot, being unwell, but able occasionally to take charge of a battery.</blockquote>
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The enemy's mode of attack being now thoroughly understood, a plan previously arranged and suggested to the general, to counteract such an attack...was adopted. The whole army was turned out subject to the orders of the engineer...</blockquote>
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The main British batteries on top of the river bluff in what is now downtown Maumee, Ohio. 24-pounder, 12-pounder and 5- and 8-inch mortars were emplaced to sweep the American camp.</div>
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Over the next two days and nights, the American army raced to build a large traverse, or earthen berm, 12 feet high, 20 feet wide, and 300 yards long to protect the exposed portions of their camp. This was hidden from the British observers by the tents in front of it, so they continued to work on emplacing their heavy cannons and mortars to sweep what they thought was an unprotected camp.<br />
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From the Diary of Captain Daniel Cushing, 2nd US Regiment of Artillery:<br />
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Thursday, 29th (April 1813)-- This day we are employed in finishing the traverse and making ready for battle, for we have been surrounded by British and Indians for two days. We let loose our cannonade on them yesterday and have kept it up by spells all this day, and shall let loose upon them this evening with an eighteen pounder that is already elevated.</blockquote>
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Friday, 30th-- We have been all day employed in traversing through the camp, playing upon their batteries with our eighteen pounders and throwing grape and canister shot at the Indians which are in our rear and on our flanks. We have had one man killed and 6 or 7 wounded by the Indians this day. </blockquote>
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Details from Captain William Sebree's Map of Fort Meigs:</div>
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"Procter, Wharburton, and Tecumseh viewing the ground on which to erect their batteries. 3pm 26 April 1813. In two seconds they rode off."</div>
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"Col. Wood and Maj. Todd returning from viewing the British fleet under a heavy fire from the Indians."</div>
Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-71693648596040175452020-04-27T11:53:00.000-04:002020-04-27T11:53:05.391-04:00Levi Johnson, man of enterprise and the War of 1812 on Lake Erie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another story about the events surrounding the Battle of Lake Erie, this one the story of an enterprising local carpenter named Levi Johnson, who had settled in Cleveland in 1808 (from<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Cleveland_and_Its_Environs/uiZEAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1"> <i>A History of Cleveland and Its Environs</i> by Elroy McKendree Avery, 1918</a>):<br />
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A few days after this battle Levi Johnson and a friend found a large flat boat [probably a batteaux or Schenectady boat, not a river barge] that had been built by General Jessup (Major Thomas Jessup) for the conveyance of troops and had been abandoned. The two men bought a hundred bushels of potatoes and loading them on the flat boat proceeded to the army and navy headquarters at Put-in-Bay, where the potatoes proved a welcome addition to the army fare and brought the partners a handsome profit.* That was the first of Levi Johnson's successful commercial transactions and as much as anything else started him on the road to prosperity. Later he and his companion loaded the flat boat with supplies which were taken to the army at Detroit, and again gave them a large profit. Mr. Johnson entered into a contract with the quartermaster of the Detroit Post to carry a cargo of clothing to the army. It was late in the season and the boat was obstructed by ice, compelling a landing at Huron. Nevertheless the cargo was delivered and those were the initial successes of Capt. Levi Johnson as a contractor and an important figure in the lake transportation business.</blockquote>
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He next proceeded with the construction of a vessel of his own. The keel was laid for a ship of thirty-five tons, named Highland**. Under many difficulties this boat was finally completed and its launching was a big event in the history of Cleveland of that day. The boat was hoisted on wheels, and with much strenuous exertion was finally drawn to the edge of the water by twenty-eight yoke of oxen. This launching occurred on the river at the foot of Superior Street, and an immense crowd, as measured in proportion to the population of Northern Ohio at that time, cheered and applauded the exploit. It was the first boat of any size constructed and launched at Cleveland and marks the beginning of Cleveland's history as a shipping center...</blockquote>
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...He made a great success of his first boat, and when it was launched it was requisitioned for army purposes and on it army stores were transported between Buffalo and Detroit. Two loads of soldiers were also taken from Buffalo to the command of Major Camp at Detroit. On the return trip the guns left by Harrison at Maumee (Fort Meigs) were taken to Erie. In this business Mr. Johnson lost $300 as a result of the qaurtermaster absconding. In 1815 he began transporting stores to Malden, making his first trip on March 20th [at that time Fort Malden was still occupied by the United States Army], and when his boat did not stop a shot was fired, the ball passing through the foresail, and after the second shot Mr. Johnson brought his vessel to the shore. The commander of the fort demanded the maiml, but Mr. Johnson declined to give it up and though an attempt was made to detain his vessel he spread sail and with a favorable wind got away from his pursuers and did not stop until he had delivered the mail safely at the Detroit post office.*** In 1815 Captain Johnson built the schooner Neptune, of sixty-five tons, and after taking it to Buffalo he returned with a cargo of merchandise consigned to Jonathan Williamson. In 1817 this vessel made a trip to Mackinac for the American Fur Company****, and was employed in the fur trade until the fall of 1819. </blockquote>
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In 1824 Captain Johnson and his associates built the first steamer ever constructed at Cleveland. It was known as the Enterprise and was of about 200 tons capacity.</blockquote>
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*Not the first time! On June 4, 1813, Captain Daniel Cushing wrote in his diary that "two men arrived from Cleveland with a boat load of potatoes, 150 bushels, sold them all out in a few hours at $2.00 per bushel; they returned this evening."<br />
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**According to another source, this was the schooner Pilot. It was built on the site of <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/VgFENZ7dh7gNy5Aq8">St. Paul's Church on Euclid Avenue</a>, and Levi Johnson enlisted the aid of 28 pairs of oxen belonging to local farmers to haul his vessel to the water! It's mentioned in a list of ships built on Lake Erie in 1814--while the war was still on (newspaper clippings found in <a href="http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/49858/data?n=1">Maritime History of the Great Lakes</a>).<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;">The following merchant vessels have been built on the south shore of Lake Erie the present season---burthen 35 to 100 tons; viz </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;">Schooner LADY OF THE LAKE, Hanchett, Cleveland </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> " PILOT, Johnson, Cleveland </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> " EXPERIMENT, Lovejoy, Buffalo </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> " VERMILLION, Austin, Vermillion River </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> " CHAMPION, Scott, Grand River </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> " DILIGENCE, Perry, Erie </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> Buffalo Gazette & Niagara Intelligencer </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> Tuesday, July 19, 1814 [ part of article ] </span></blockquote>
***This definitely doesn't sound right, because in March 1815 the United States and Britain were at peace, and the Americans didn't turn Fort Malden over to the British again until July 1 of that year. Perhaps the answer lies in this account of a run-in that the Brig Union had with British authorities in 1816:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;">The Hermaphrodite Brig UNION, Jas. Beard, master, left Detroit on the 23rd Ult. and grounded near the head of Gros Island, about 8 miles below Detroit, her own boat being too small, she obtained one from the U.S. Garrison at Gros Island for the purpose of getting her off; which was effected on the morning of the 24th. The wind being ahead she beat down the river nearly abreast of the garrison, to which two men were sent to return the boat -- being in sight of Amherstberg, a boat was seen to leave the latter place at the same time ours left the Brig, and to proceed in the same direction until our boat came near the garrison, she then put about for the UNION, having on board an officer in a Midshipman's uniform and six men, who immediately came on deck. The officer enquired for the master of the Brig, and told him he had come to search his vesseI for deserters. Mr. Beard observed his men were all on deck, except those sent on shore in the boat. The officer then ordered his men into the hold and fore-castle to search. Mr. Beard remonstrated against such unwarrantable proceedings, and forbit it. The officer then replied, that he was ordered to search her peaceably if he could, if not to use force, saying,"your Government allows it, and why should not you?" </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;">At this time there were two pieces of artillery drawn up on the Canada shore, apparently well manned, and not more than one hundred yards from the UNION. Mr. Beard told the British officer that if he would search the Brig, he must take charge of her; which he did by taking the helm and ordering his men to take in sail and bring her to anchor, which was done. The Brig was then searched, and the officer told Capt. Beard he might resume the command of her. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;">On Capt. Beard asking him by what authority he acted, he replied, that his name was Henry Brooks, that he acted under a verbal order from his commanding officer. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">A suitable notice of the above transaction will be forwarded to the head of the proper department at Washington. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> Buffalo Gazette & Niagara Intelligencer </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12px;"> Tuesday, August 6, 1816 </span></blockquote>
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The <i>Union </i>was an odd vessel herself-- being built on Put-in-Bay and finished at Grand River in 1813 or 1814, according to <a href="http://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/Documents/walker/default.asp?ID=c1">Captain Augustus Walker</a>:</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fefeee; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; text-indent: 10.6667px;">The brig </span><i style="background-color: #fefeee; font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; text-indent: 10.6667px;">Union</i><span style="background-color: #fefeee; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; text-indent: 10.6667px;"> was owned by Jonathan Sidway and commanded by Captain James Beard. As this was the first vessel that I embarked on as a sailor I may be permitted to dwell on some of her peculiarities. She was modeled, built, owned and commanded by a man named Martin, who had been a house carpenter. She was partially built on Put-in-Bay Island, launched and towed to the mouth of Grand River, Ohio, in 1813. It is difficult to give any adequate idea of her construction. Her proportions were unlike those of any other craft then or since on the lakes. She had some good points, one of them her great breadth of beam; that, together with her flat bottom, with but little dead-rise to her floor, enabled her to carry a much larger cargo than other vessels of her tonnage, and when light she could sail safely in all kinds of weather without ballast. The manner of her planking was peculiar. Her garboard-streak followed up the main stem, butting underneath the wales instead of ending against the stem of the ship. Each succeeding streak of plank was gradually tapered or beveled at the forward end, so that the last streak was brought to a wedge-like point terminating some 20 feet from her bows. She was originally schooner-rigged, with two old-fashioned slip-keels. Her lower masts were buttonwood; the bowsprit and jib-boom of the same timber, both made in one spar; her decks were of red cedar and but very little iron was used in her build, she being mostly fastened with wooden trunnels. She was employed at the close of the war by the United States Government as a transport. In 1815 she was sunk in Scajaquada Creek, but was subsequently raised by Stanard & Bidwell and rebuilt into a hermaphrodite brig--removing the slip-keels and substituting a standing one in their stead. By this general overhauling she was made to look much like a sea-going vessel, and when under way, with all her canvas, upper and lower studding sails set to the breeze, her appearance was really quite imposing. In 1816, '17 and '18 she was under the command of Capt. James Beard, the father of the artist, Wm. H. Beard, of this city.</span></blockquote>
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**** Following the War of 1812, the United States barred foreign firms such as the Hudson Bay Company and Northwest Fur Company from trading in its territory, giving John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company a monopoly over the fur trade in American territory.<br />
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-28621065237063522232020-04-26T14:44:00.000-04:002020-04-26T14:44:01.186-04:00The Bizarre Afterlife (s) of HMS Detroit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/SSV_Oliver_Hazard_Perry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="557" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/SSV_Oliver_Hazard_Perry.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>
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<i>The modern sailing training ship </i>Oliver Hazard Perry, <i>formerly the reconstructed </i>Detroit.</div>
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The ship sloop <i>Detroit</i> was the most powerful ship on the Upper Great Lakes when she was launched at the Amherstburg Naval Dockyard in July of 1813, and fitted out on the Detroit river in August. However, from the beginning she had a jinxed life. Built to counter the Americans new 18-gun brigs then being built at Erie, Pennsylvania, she was to mount 20 24-pounder carronades and 4 12-pounder long guns. Because Amherstburg was on the end of a long string of British outposts, some of which were attacked and captured while the <i>Detroit </i>was under construction, getting the vessel fitted out and armed was a major struggle. After her carronades were captured when the capital of Upper Canada, York (modern day Toronto) fell to an American attack, the British had to scrape together a mixed armament of 24-pounders and 12-pounders and other odd long guns, including an 18-pounder on a pivot mount. This still made her a formidable ship but she was captured along with the rest of the British squadron--not before being nearly shot to pieces and losing most of her crew and officers. The damage was so severe that although she was taken into American service as the USS <i>Detroit</i>, the vessel spent the winter of 1813 at Put-in-Bay before being repaired enough, along with her sister <i>Queen Charlotte</i>, to limp back to Erie, Pennsylvania. At the end of the War of 1812 both ships were sunk along with the American brigs to preserve the hulls. If another war with England came, they could be raised and fitted out again.<br />
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The Navy sold the submerged hulks off, and in 1836 an Erie merchant raised the <i>Detroit </i>to use as a merchant ship. She again sailed the lakes until 1841, when according to most sources she was bought by a group of Niagara area merchants who planned to send her over the Niagara Falls as a stunt. The vessel grounded somewhere in the rapids above the Falls, and broke up. Probably, there are fittings and timbers scattered through the rapids in the area that belong to the ill-fated <i>Detroit</i>. Ironically, the first HMS <i>Detroit</i>, the US Army Brig <i>Adams </i>captured from the Americans in 1812, then recaptured by Jesse Elliot, ran aground and burned in the Niagara, a few miles upriver of her namesake.<br />
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That's not the end of the story, however. In 1998 an Ontario group raised funds to build a steel-hulled replica of the Detroit to be based at Amherstburg, Ontario. They finished the hull, apparently, but after spending 3 million dollars, they had run out of money before they could fit it out and operate it. From 2003 to 2015 the project was stillborn, but at last a group of Rhode Islanders swept in and purchased the hull, had it towed to Oliver Hazard Perry's hometown of Newport, and fitted out as a sail training vessel. In an ironic twist, it was renamed the SSV <i>Oliver Hazard Perry</i>.<br />
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"The Ships of War are Coming In." -- To the immense number of vessels navigation Lake Erie, is about to be added a class rendered famous, in former days and the sight of which, engaged in commerce, will be calculated to awaken the patriotic feelings of every American beholder. The vessels composing a part of the glorious fleet of the victor Perry, with a number of the prizes taken from the enemy in the ever memorable battle of the 10th of Sept., 1813, which have since the close of the late war, sunk in this harbor, have lately become the property of Messrs. Miles and Leach of this place, are to be fitted up for Lake trade. The QUEEN CHARLOTTE, (a prize) was raised on Monday last. Her timbers were found to be perfectly sound. She is to be repaired and rigged for a brig this season. The LAWRENCE, (American) and the DETROIT (prize) are to be raised immediately -- the former intended to be converted to a steam boat. ---- Erie Observer </blockquote>
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Cleveland Weekly Advertiser </blockquote>
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Thursday, January 20, 1835; 3; 1. </blockquote>
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PERRY'S FLEET. - Two more of the vessels engaged in the ever memorable action of the 10th. Sept. 1813----the LAWRENCE and the DETROIT---have been raised from their watery bed in this harbor, for the purpose of being brought again into action, not for the destruction of human life as formerly but to be used in the more peaceful and profitable pursuits of commerce. The timbers, like those of the QUEEN CHARLOTTE are found to be perfectly sound, and there is no doubt they will richly reward their present proprietors for their enterprise in bringing them once more to the surface of that water on which they were once so distinguished, and placing them again in a state for public usefulness. </blockquote>
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The LAWRENCE, which was the flag ship of Commodore Perry, was raised during the firing of a national salute, on the 10th. inst. the anniversary of the action in which her commander was so successfully victorious, just twenty-two years before. - Erie Observer </blockquote>
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Buffalo Daily Star </blockquote>
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Thursday, September 17, 1835 </blockquote>
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The ship DETROIT, flagship of the British squadron on Lake Erie in 1813, has arrived at Detroit. She was raised by the exertions of Capt. Miles from the basin at Erie, where she has lain sunk since 1814. Her timbers, decks, &c., are perfectly sound. About twenty 32 pound balls were taken from her timbers, during the repairs, and a great number of smaller, from twelves to grape shot. Some are yet remaining in her wales. She is 260 tons burthen, has a gentleman's cabin with 16 berths, ladies' cabin, 8 berths, steerage, 18 berths, and 3 state rooms, sufficient each to accommodate a family. </blockquote>
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Cleveland Weekly Advertiser </blockquote>
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Thursday, August 25, 1836 </blockquote>
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The British Barge DETROIT - This vessel which was sunk during the last war at Erie, and raised by Capt. Miles, is now lying at the wharf in this city. Very little alteration has been made, her hull, cabins, &c., remain as they were. There is still to be seen on board of this vessel, an eighteen-pound ball, lodged in her starboard side, just under the deck and opposite the foremast, which attracts a good deal of attention. - Cleveland Adv. </blockquote>
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Detroit Democratic Free Press </blockquote>
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June 28, 1837 </blockquote>
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The barque DETROIT, once a British vessel of war, is now in port. She belonged to the fleet captured by the brave Perry, and was sunk for preservation many years ago, at Presque Isle. She was raised last season and has been fitted up for the trade of the uper (sic) lakes. - Buf. Star. </blockquote>
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Detroit Democratic Free Press July 13, 1837 </blockquote>
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-82955318395719702552020-04-25T10:58:00.001-04:002020-04-25T10:58:19.470-04:001813: Harrison and Perry's amphibious landing in Canada<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Fe7zDFh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="297" src="https://i.imgur.com/Fe7zDFh.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A painting of the Battle of Lake Erie done in consultation with Perry shortly after the war--supposedly the vessels are as close as we can get to the appearance of the actual fleet.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />One of the most overlooked aspects of "the forgotten" War of 1812 is the experience the American forces gained in landing troops on hostile shores. Few people today realize that the Lake Erie shoreline was, over 200 years ago, the scene of a massive effort to transport men and cannons and conduct a "D-Day" style landing against what the Americans thought would be a defended beachhead. Moreover, throughout the summer of 1813 they had been preparing for these operations by building boats in a yard far, far up the Cuyahoga Valley--in a spot where few people would expect to find a naval installation today; Peninsula, Ohio near Akron. Large, flat bottomed open boats termed Schenectady boats were built, sent down the Cuyahoga River to Cleveland, where the commandant of the area, Major Thomas Jessup, sank them in the river to prevent them from being destroyed or captured by British forces. After the Battle of Lake Erie they were used to transport troops from Cleveland, the Sandusky River, and other points to Marblehead, where the army was ferried in parts to the Lake Erie Islands. Samuel R Brown's account provides a valuable picture of the amphibious operations of General William Henry Harrison's campaign:<br />
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...At the same time (as Perry's victory on Lake Erie) the general began to concentrate his forces at the mouth of the Portage River (modern day Port Clinton, Ohio). The greatest activity was visible in camp; in preparing for the descent on Canada--boats were collected--beef jerked--the superfluous baggage secured in block houses and a substantial log fence two miles long, extending from Portage River to Sandusky Bay, was built to secure the horses during the operations of the army.</blockquote>
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On the 17th (Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky) with 4000 volunteers, arrived at headquarters. This formidable corps were all mounted; but it was deemed best for them to act as infantry, and leave their horses on the peninsula. On the 20th (Brigadier General Duncan McArthur)'s brigade, from Fort Meigs, joined the main body, after a very fatiguing march of three days down the lake coast.</blockquote>
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Colonel (Richard Johnson)'s mounted regiment remained at Fort Meigs, but had orders to approach Detroit by land and to advance <i>pari passu</i> (side by side) with the commander in chief, who was to move in boats through the islands, to Malden, and of whose progress, the colonel was to be daily informed by a special express.</blockquote>
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Everything being now ready, the embarkation of the troops commenced at the dawn of day, on the 21st (of September). For the want of a sufficient number of boats, not more than one third of the army could embark at once.</blockquote>
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There is a range of islands extending from the head of the Peninsula, to Malden. These islands render the navigation safe, and afford the army convenient depots for baggage and stores, as well as halting places. (The number of horses left on the Marblehead Peninsula, during the absence of the army in Canada, was upwards of five thousand! For the most part, of the first size and condition.)</blockquote>
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Put-in-Bay Island, sixteen miles from Portage, was selected by the general as the first point of rendezvous--the first stage in his passage across the lake. The weather was favorable. As soon as the first division of boats reached the island, men were immediately detached to take back the boats for a fresh load. Such was the eagerness of the men to accelerate the embarkation of the whole army, that they, in most cases, anticipated this regulation by volunteering their services to return with the boats. Every one courted fatigue.</blockquote>
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The fleet of commodore Perry, was busily engaged in transporting the baggage of the army. In the course of the 22nd the whole army had gained the island, and encamped on the margin of the bay, which forms nearly a semi circle... </blockquote>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/EH7XGiy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/EH7XGiy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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...The army was detained at Put-in-Bay during the 23rd and 24th (of September) by unfavorable winds. On the 24th, a soldier of the regular forces was shot for desertion. He had deserted three times--had been twice before condemned to suffer death, and as often pardoned; he met his fate with stoical indifference, but it made a very sensible impression on the troops. Two platoons fired on him, at a distance of five paces, and perforated his body like a sieve. </blockquote>
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(It is worthy of remark that but <i>two</i> soldiers were shot in the northwestern army; and so unfrequent was desertion, that from the time I joined it, till its departure from Fort George, not a solitary instance occurred; at least none came to my knowledge, although I made frequent inquiries as to the fact. I am not willing to attribute this extraordinary fidelity to the public service, to the superior patriotism of the people of the west, or a nice sense of the force of moral obligations. The cause is evident--the officers are generally, more attentive to their men, than those of the northern army.)</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/FczrmkI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/FczrmkI.jpg" width="478" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A typical bateau used as a transport on the upper great lakes. The bateaux, Schenectady boat, or Mackinac boat all seem to have been similar designs that were used extensively on the lake for travel and trade.</td></tr>
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On the 25th the army again embarked partly in boats and partly on board the fleet, to take a nearer position to the Canadian shore. The flotilla arrived a little before sunset, at a small island called the Eastern Sister, eighteen miles from Malden and seven from the coast. This island does not contain more than three acres, and the men had scarcely room to sit down.</blockquote>
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On the 26th the wind blew fresh, it became necessary to haul up the boats, to prevent their staving. The general and commodore in the (US Schooner) Ariel, made a reconnaissance of the enemy's coast and approached within a short distance of Malden. <a href="http://www.shelbycountyhistory.org/schs/indians/chiefcaptjohnny.htm">Captain Johnny</a> was dispatched to apprize Col. Johnson of our progress. (Brigadier General Lewis Cass, Colonel James V. Ball, and Captain John McClelland) were busy in arranging and numbering the boats. At sun set the lake had risen several feet; indeed, such was the violence of the surf that many entertained the serious fears that the greater part of the island would be inundated before morning. However, the wind subsided at twelve and relieved our apprehensions.</blockquote>
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On the 27th at nine in the morning the army made its final embarkation. The day was fine, and a propitiious breeze made our passage a most pleasing pastime. It was a sublime and delightful spectacle to behold 16 ships of war and 100 boats filled with men, borne rapidly and majestically to the long sought shores of the enemy. The recollection of this day can never be effaced from my memory. There was something truly grand and animating in the looks of the men. There was an air of confidence in every countenance. The troops panted for an oppertunity to rival their naval brethren in feats of courage and skill; they seemed to envy the good fortune of our brave tars. They were ignorant of the flight of the enemy, and confidently expected a fight; indeed the belief was current among the troops that the enemy were in great force; for it was believed that Dixon's (Robert Dickson, an Indian Department agent who had brought 1400 western Indians to the second siege of Fort Meigs earlier in the year) Indians as well as Tecumseh's were at Malden.</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/xg1gSYW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/xg1gSYW.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early survey of the mouth of the Detroit River, showing the site of the landing and nearby Amherstburg and Fort Malden. </td></tr>
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<br />We landed in perfect order of battle at 4 PM three miles below Malden. The Kentucky volunteers formed the right wing. Ball's legion and the friendly Indians the centre--the regulars on the left. The troops were almost instantly in line and shortly commenced their march, <i>en echelons, </i>for Malden. The troops had been drilled to marching in and out of boats and to forming on the beach. Every man knew his place; and so well were they masters of this very necessary piece of service, that a company would march into a boat, debark and form on the beach in less than one minute, and that too without the least confusion. (This proficiency is applicable only to the regulars and twelve-months volunteers. The militia officers did not attend to it.)</blockquote>
<a href="https://archive.org/details/messagesletterso22harr/page/318/mode/2up">[Read the plan for the amphibious landing in General Harrison's orders here.] </a><br />
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As we approached Malden, instead of the red coats and the war whoop of the Indians, a group of well dressed ladies advanced to meet us, and to implore mercy and protection. They were met by governor Shelby, who soon quieted their fears by assuring them that we came not to make war on women and children but to protect them.</blockquote>
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The army entered Malden by several parallel streets and we marched through the town to the thunder of "<i>Yankee Doodle</i>."</blockquote>
Next: The re-occupation of Detroit and the pursuit of Tecumseh and General Henry Procter to the village of Moraviantown.<br />
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-14007525534789268462020-04-23T11:00:00.001-04:002020-04-23T11:00:42.031-04:00Samuel R Brown's Eyewitness Account of the Lake Erie- Thames Campaign 1813<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.imgur.com/QwHz53R.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://i.imgur.com/QwHz53R.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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Here are some eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie by Samuel R Brown, who at the time was a private in Captain James McClelland's Company of Volunteer Light Dragoons, attached to Major James V Ball's Squadron. When the army of General William Henry Harrison embarked on boats and the fleet of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, they had to leave their mounts behind on the Marblehead Peninsula of Sandusky Bay, and serve as a light infantry corps for the remainder of the campaign. These excerpts are taken from two of Brown's published works: <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/viewsofcampaigns00brow/page/n1/mode/2up">Views of the Campaigns of the Northwest Army</a></i>, and <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/viewsonlakeeriec00brow/page/n8/mode/2up">Views on Lake Erie</a></i>, both printed in 1814.<br />
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The writer of this account, in company with five others, arrived at the head of Put in Bay island on the evening of the 9th, and had a view of the action at the distance of only ten miles. The spectacle was truly grand and awful. The firing was incessant for the space of three hours, and continued at short intervals forty-five minutes longer. In less than one hour after the battle began, most of the vessels of both fleets were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, which rendered the issue of the action uncertain, till the next morning when we visited the fleet in the harbor on the opposite side of the island. The reader will easily judge of our solicitude to learn the result. There is no sentiment more painful than suspense, when it is excited by the uncertain issue of an event like this. </blockquote>
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...In the course of the 22nd the whole army had gained the island, and encamped on the margin of the bay, which forms nearly a semi circle. The Lawrence, and the six prize ships, captured from the enemy, were at anchor in the centre of the bay, and in full view. With what ineffable delight did we contemplate this interesting spectacle! The curiosity of the troops was amply indulged; every one was permitted to go on board the prizes to view the effects of the battle. The men were highly pleased with this indulgence of the general and the commodore. The scene was calculated to inflame their military ardor, which was visible in every countenance...</blockquote>
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The carnage on board the prizes was prodigious--they must have had 200 killed besides wounded. The sides of the Detroit and Queen Charlotte were shattered from bow to stern; there was scarcely room to place one's hand on their larboard sides without touching the impression of a shot--a great many balls, canister and grape, were found lodged in their bulwarks, which were too thick to be penetrated by our carronades. Their masts were so much shattered that they fell overboard soon after they got into the bay...</blockquote>
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(As for the Lawrence) her sides were completely riddled by the shot from the long guns of the British ships. Her deck, the morning after the conflict, when I first went on board, exhibited a scene that defies description--for it was literally covered with blood, which still adhered to the plank in clots--brains, hair and fragments of bones were still sticking to the rigging and sides. The surgeons were still busy with the wounded--enough! horror appalled my senses.</blockquote>
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On board of the Detroit, twenty-four hours after her surrender, were found snugly stowed away in the hold, two Indian Chiefs, who had the courage to go on board at Malden, for the purpose of acting as sharp shooters to kill our officers. One had the courage to ascend into the round top and discharged his piece, but the whizzing of shot, splinters, and bits of rigging, soon made the place too warm for him--he descended faster than he went up; at the moment he reached the deck, the fragments of a seaman's head stuck his comrade's face, and covered it with blood and brains. He vociferated the savage interjection "quoh!" and both sought safety below.</blockquote>
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The British officers had domesticated a bear at Malden. Bruin accompanied his comrades to battle--was on the deck of the Detroit during the engagement, and escaped unhurt. </blockquote>
Next up: Brown's account of the amphibious operations which landed Harrison's Army on the Canadian shores near Fort Malden.<br />
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Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-44496985110403555772020-04-22T09:19:00.000-04:002020-04-22T09:19:15.924-04:00Samuel R Brown, Forgotten Veteran of the War of 1812<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
The confused records of the War of 1812 often lead to some intriguing mysteries. One such are the several books produced by Auburn, New York newspaper editor Samuel R Brown. Auburn is in upper state New York, far from the scene of fighting during the War of 1812 in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Upper Canada. As early as 1814 and 1815, publishers in the United States were churning out histories of the recent events of the war, especially such events as the Battle of Tippecanoe, the surrender of Detroit, the Siege of Fort Meigs and the American victory at the Battle of the River Thames.<br />
<br />
During this time there was a major newspaper boom in America-- every county seat and town, no matter how far into the frontier, seems to have had its local print shop and daily or weekly newspaper. The Miami Western Star (Lebanon, Ohio), the Trump of Fortune (Warren, Ohio), Freeman's Chronicle (Franklinton Ohio), and Intelligencer (Worthington, Ohio) are a few of Ohio's frontier newspapers of this era. They seemed to be beneficiaries of the postal system of the era, which allowed newspapers to be easily disseminated. News from Europe, the globe, and the eastern United States was mingled with local news, letters from people attached to the armies during the War of 1812, and even poems and amusing stories. They also served a vital community role-- they were paid for mostly by classified ads usually taking up the last page, which grant us a window into the early shops, tradesmen, and legal actions going on in frontier towns. There was also usually a list of people for whom mail had arrived-- the postal system did not use stamps, but rather the recipient of a letter had to pay the postmaster for it. Therefore letters tended to pile up for people who needed to pay for them!<br />
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Samuel R Brown set himself up in Auburn sometime in 1813 or 1814, and remained there until his death at age 42 in 1817. He published the Cayuga Patriot, which outlived him being printed until 1819. We have a glimpse at the man and his business and family life because his apprentice printer, Thurlow Weed, later became a prominent Albany publisher and newspaper editor. Weed recalled:<br />
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Nor shall we ever forget the upper story of a wagon-maker's shop, where the "Cayuga Patriot" was first printed; for there we worked, and laughed, and played away most of the winter of 1814. Samuel R. Brown, who published the "Patriot", was an honest, amiable, easy, slip-shod sort of man, whose patient, good-natured wife was 'cut from the same piece.' Mr. Brown, the year before, had been established at Albany, with a paper called the "Republican, " under the auspices of Governor Tompkins, Chief-Justice Spencer, and other distinguished Republicans, with whom Mr. Southwick, of the "Register", and then State printer, had quarreled. The enterprise, like everything in our old friend Brown's hands, failed. and he next found himself at Auburn, then a small village, without a sidewalk or a pavement, and, save for Sackett's Harbor, the muddiest place we ever saw. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were originals. Neither of them, so far as we remember,ever lost their temper or ever fretted. the work in the office was always behind-hand, and the house always in confusion. The paper was never out in season, and neither breakfast nor dinner were ever ready. But it was all the same. Subscribers waited for the paper till it was printed, and we waited for our meals till they were cooked. The office was always full of loungers communicating or receiving news; and but for an amateur type-setter, Richard Oliphant, late editor of the "Oswego County Whig" and brother of the editor of the "Auburn Journal", to whom we became much attached, and who, though a mere boy, used to do a full share of the work, the business would have fallen still further behind-hand.</blockquote>
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For small town newspaper publishers, the newspaper was only one aspect of business. They handled all sorts of printing jobs for locals, including blank forms, journals and stationary. It's not surprising that such a man would branch out into writing books about current events and geography. There was a huge demand for books about the recent events of the war, but also for guides for settlers immigrating into the vast lands that had been opened up in large part due to the settlements between the US Government and the Indian nations of the Northwest and Southeast frontiers. Between 1814 and 1817 Samuel R Brown wrote and published Views of the Campaigns of the Northwestern Army (1814), Views on Lake Erie (1814), two volumes of An Authentic History of the Second War for Independence (1815), and the Western Gazetteer, or, Emigrant's Directory (1817). Many of these books relied on Brown's own travels throughout the western frontier, or on first hand accounts he had examined from correspondents. There are a number of stories or descriptions in his books on General William Henry Harrison's campaigns in 1813 which contain odd details, and lead me to believe they are based on his own direct experience, even though his books are usually listed under the category of secondary works in most historiography of the War of 1812. Another veteran of the war, writing in the 1870s, accused Brown of printing "camp rumor" rather than a objective history.<br />
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As a War of 1812 historian, the question for me remained-- was Samuel R Brown present during the Siege of Fort Meigs, the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, or the Battle of the Thames? How could he have been involved in all these events and yet, seemingly without missing a beat be peacefully back in his print shop above the wheel wright's in Auburn, with his wife and six kids and working on his newspaper and book manuscripts?<br />
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As to the nature of his service, there is only a small hint in his obituary:<br />
"Mr. Brown was a rational lover of our free, Republican Institutions; warmly attached to the<br />
best interests of his country, and ever vigilant and prompt to promote it's prosperity, and<br />
defend and enhance it's glory. On the tented field he was a patriotic soldier. In the heat of<br />
battle, he stood a hero, undismayed by the crash of arms, unappalled by the sight of blood,<br />
and, proud and fearless in the front of danger, he did breast himself against..."<br />
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"In the late War, Mr. Brown evinced the spirit of a freeman, under the immediate command of Col.<br />
Johnson of Kentucky. Not until Proctor was vanquished and Tecumseh slain upon the battlefield<br />
did the unfortunate Brown quit the frontiers of his country and return to the bosom of his<br />
family, his kindred and his friends."<br />
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But there is nothing to suggest that Samuel R Brown was attached as a volunteer to the famous Regiment of Mounted Riflemen led by Colonel Richard Johnson. The answer, seems instead to come from the modern brute-force technology of Googling, because a my search for his name and the term "War of 1812" pulled up a hit on a muster roll of Captain James A McClelland's company of Volunteer Light Dragoons, which in turn served under Major James V. Ball throughout the 1813 campaign. This supports his own account, because almost as an aside Brown mentioned that he was attached to McClelland's company throughout the campaign.<br />
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He was definitely present with Ball's dragoons during the siege of Fort Meigs:<br />
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Notwithstanding the incessant fire of the enemy, the men were obliged to go to the river for water every night--the well not being finished... Their 24 pound shot passed through the pickets without cutting them down. Our gunners silenced one of their pieces several times. They did not fire so rapidly as the enemy, but with a better aim...</blockquote>
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One reason why our troops did not sustain a greater loss in the fort, was because the men had contrived a kind of bomb proof retreat all along the ditch immediately behind the pickets. They would watch the enemy's fire and knew when to squat into their hiding places. By this means many valuable lives were saved.</blockquote>
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Vast quantities of rain fell during the siege--the soil within the pickets is clay, and the constant treading of the men and horses caused the whole area of the fort to become a perfect bed of mortar, half leg deep--the frequent bursting of shells caused it to fly in every direction, covering officers and men with mud. </blockquote>
Brown's pamphlets and histories are a valuable primary account of the campaign, especially the events which he was present to witness, including the siege of Fort Meigs, and as we shall see, the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, the amphibious landings near Fort Malden, recapture of Detroit and the Battle of the Thames.Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1938326318179153600.post-2032125443494407872020-03-21T19:16:00.001-04:002020-03-21T19:21:34.940-04:00Hunting for Buried Treasure in Sing-Sing<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQliXw-1GRWhULf6n1FnG17I7cILfemvNxTDz_r1JLjkxYhEkgUxK8AbGp5ZY7qY-CCI7kO9BjFceSV2NF-nLNQ1Ym3POAcdQnABu2-L1TeVXFYyjExyAPWurlHjrrRiTbcHGVjd41DaWg/s1600/1967.18_print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="1600" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQliXw-1GRWhULf6n1FnG17I7cILfemvNxTDz_r1JLjkxYhEkgUxK8AbGp5ZY7qY-CCI7kO9BjFceSV2NF-nLNQ1Ym3POAcdQnABu2-L1TeVXFYyjExyAPWurlHjrrRiTbcHGVjd41DaWg/s320/1967.18_print.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Devil and Tom Walker", from the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Taking a break from the War of 1812 memoir of Rev. Alfred Brunson, I happened to read his account of his early life, growing up in the village of Sing Sing (now Ossining, New York). Sing Sing later became famous as the site of the New York State Prison, but in 1800 when Brunson moved there with his family, it was a tiny rural village on the banks of the Hudson River.<br />
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Given the continued obsession and search for the treasure of Oak Island, it is worth remembering that the first accounts of buried treasure there come from the early 19th century, when a treasure hunting mania was popular in the United States. Both Edgar Allen Poe and Washington Irving wrote stories featuring buried pirate treasure, and the most notorious source of this treasure was that supposedly hidden by the pirate hunter-turned renegade Captain William Kidd.<br />
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Brunson's memoirs contain two incidents involving treasure hunters and locals who decided to play pranks on them:<br />
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“My father…in 1800 moved to Sing Sing, on the Hudson River, and opened a public-house, a brick-yard, and kept the ferry from the Upper, or Delavan’s, Dock, to Perry’s Landing and Haverstraw.”<br />
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“In the brick-yard, and on the ferry-boat, I participated in the labors, as far as my age and strength would admit of, in the Summers, and in the Winters attended school. In ferrying I became a boatman, and the risks of life I passed in the business cause my blood to chill often, when I think of them, to this day. Yet what I learned of boating in that period of my life was of great use to me in after years, when in the army, and in my missionary toils on the Western lakes and rivers. Indeed, if it had not been for the nautical skill I attained before I was thirteen years of age, I should, with a wife and five children, and a score of others, most likely, have found a watery grave in Lake Erie, notice of which will be hereafter taken…”<br />
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“…On the spot where the State Prison now stands I have often played, fished, and, at low tide, ate oysters from the rocks on which they grew. Near the Point, just above the site of the prison, was a silver mine, said to have been wrought previous to the Revolution, under the direction, and for the special benefit of the British Crown. On my first visit to the place, in the year 1800, I was shown what was said to be the remains of the pump used to raise the water from the shaft. It stood just above high-water mark, and near the rocks which bind the coast of the river at that place. The shaft was said to have been thirty or forty feet, perpendicular, and then run on a level, under the bed of the river, some distance. When the Revolution broke out, the miners left, and, at the time I speak of, the shaft was filled up by the wash from the hill, and the pump was nearly decayed, it being twenty-five years, at least, since it was placed there. In 1817 it was stated in the papers that an attempt was made to reopen the mine, but I believe it proved a failure."<br />
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“From the brow of the river bank, back some thirty or forty rods, was a beautifully inclined plain, thickly covered with small pitch-pine trees, the foliage of which so intermingled with each other as to exclude the rays of the sun from the ground, and give the place a very somber appearance. A single foot-path passed through it from the Lower Dock to Sparta. But as ignorance and superstition attached to this grove the idea of ghosts and hobgoblins, it required more than ordinary nerve in a boy, and most men, to pass through it alone in the day-time, without fearful apprehensions; and it was so horribly dark in the night that but few attempted to pass it, and then only in cases of extreme necessity, and with company, and lights to guide them."<br />
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“Its gloomy appearance attached to it the idea of a suitable place for the pirate Kidd to deposit his ill-gotten gains upon the high seas; and at the east side of the grove was a ledge of rocks, running parallel to the river, at the foot of which some one’s imagination placed the money, and from some appearances, fancied that he had found the spot. But, as it was said that Kidd, when he buried his money, also killed and buried a man with it, to watch it, and whose ghost was to guard it, it was expected that a contest would occur when an attempt was made to exhume it, and it was, therefore, deemed prudent and necessary to have help; and from fear of discovery, and the owner of the lands claiming the treasure, if found, the digging must be done in the night. Under these circumstances but few had the nerve enough to undertake the hazardous business. In this case, those who wished to dig sought for company and help from one who had no faith in the adventure; but being fond of fun, let on to do so, and at the same time arranged to have others present, who should act the part of the ghosts, and prepared masks, made of blue sugar-loaf paper. One had a wheel-barrow, to which was attached numerous small pieces of tin, so arranged as to jingle loudly; another had a horse-fiddle, the noise of which resembled the braying of an ass, nearer than any thing else; another had a tin horn, with a goose-quill squeaker in it, the noise of which equaled the fiddle; others had cow-bells, and other frightfully noisy implements; all being armed with fire-arms. In this plight they repaired to the spot, or near it, and hid themselves in the woods, ready for action.”<br />
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“The diggers came in due time, very still, of course, and with every necessary precaution to prevent discovery; but they had just begun to dig when fearful noises were heard, which the diggers—except the traitor—supposed to be from the ghost of Kidd’s murdered man. This, of course, settled the question with them, as to the locality of the treasure they were in pursuit of, and they plied the shovel and spade with a will. But the noises increased, and the supposed ghost approached, with torches lighted, fire-arms roaring in the dense grove; and, on turning to see who and what was coming, the diggers, to their consternation, instead of seeing ghosts, clad in white, as they are generally supposed to be, saw devils, as black as Tophet, with great ears and horns sticking out, and they concluded that the bad place had broken loose, and the demons were after them in earnest! This was too much for flesh to bear or withstand, and they took to their heels, for dear life; and the wheel-barrow, the horn, the bells, and one man with a tom-cat in a bag, whose tail he bit till the cat raised a terrible caterwaul, all after the diggers, and followed them so close that it was said some of them fainted, and came near to dying from the fright…”<br />
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“There was one other spot in the neighborhood which had a similar adventure. There was then, and probably is yet, a large, round, granite rock, a mile or so above the Upper or Delavan’s Dock, and at the south of ‘Osser’s Fishing Beach.’ At high tide, this rock was nearly covered with water. At low tide it was nearly bare, and the sand-beach connected it with the shore, making it a point projecting from the shore into the river. Almost at the water’s edge, at low tide, there were two pairs of parallel marks, about three-fourths of an inch wide, resembling the half of a three-quarter inch auger-hole. Each pair was parallel, and the two pairs verged a little toward each other at their south-east ends, so as to bring their lines together at about half a mile’s distance, at the foot of a hill, and at the mouth of a small run of water. It was supposed that Kidd had buried some of his money near to where these two lines came to a point. And Mr. Osser, the owner of the land, had dug in the hill for it, but found none."<br />
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“In 1804 the yellow fever drove most of the people out of the city of New York, who found residences in the country wherever they could, and Sing Sing was crowded to overflowing. Every kind of tenement, capable of holding human beings in warm weather, was occupied to its utmost capacity—some living on their money, and others brought their goods and opened stores, and mechanics opened their shops, while others found employ as day-laborers. Among the rest were a company of silversmiths, who wrought at silverplate; and among this great crowd were many who delighted in fun of some kind, and their wits were strained to their utmost tension to devise and execute schemes for sport.”<br />
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“About this time an old Juke supposed that he had found the spot, the very spot in the valley of the little run above described, where Kidd had deposited his money, and to which these singular marks on the rock pointed. But, presuming that the coin was now out of date and would not pass as money, he made a confidant of one of the silversmiths, and proposed a partnership in the enterprise, with the agreement that the smith should take all the old coin to work up in his shop, and give the old man the half of the value thereof in current money, and the time was fixed upon for the digging to be done—in the night, of course, or Mr. Osser would claim the treasure, it being on his land."<br />
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“In the mean time, the smith made known the plan of operations to all his spree-loving friends, and due preparations were made to have a time of it. Each one was supplied with a black mask, and cap with long ears and horns; and each one had in each hand torches made of oakum saturated with spirits of turpentine. An inveterate smoker, who could light a new cigar from the stub of an old one, and thus keep up fire to any length of time he pleased—lucifer matches were not then known—climbed a tree, over the spot selected for the digging, while the others hid themselves in the woods.”<br />
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“As soon as the digging commenced, the man in the tree-top cried out, in the most sepulchral voice he could assume: ‘Stop digging! Stop digging! That’s my money! That’s my money!” The old man thought that surely he had hit upon the right spot, and that Kidd’s walking ghost was aroused, and he dug away with a will. But soon the same words came down as from the clouds, warning the diggers to cease, with more assumed authority than before. But the old man urged on the spade with still more force, the smith, meanwhile, pretending to be encouraged with the prospect before them.”<br />
“At this juncture, the man in the tree-top ignited his torch, which was placed upon a small board, wired up some distance, and then connected to a string, and let the blazing torch run down to the ground, like a ball of fire from a thunder-cloud, when all the pretended demons of the woods ran up and touched their torches to the lighted one, and in a moment they were dancing round the diggers, the woods being nearly as light as day. By this time the smith had backed out, and hid behind a tree to see the sport, and the old man was left to defend his own cause as best he could. But, seeing so many devils around him, he ceased digging, and stood leaning on the spade-handle, when the demons approached him so near as to flirt the burning fluid into his face. This, he thought, was a little too much like a hotter place he had heard of, and, fearing the devils, as he supposed them to be, would lay violent hands on him, and drag him into it, he fled for a safer place. One of the New Yorkers, who was a witness of the scene, declared that the devil sprung his net, and, if it had not caught up in the top of a white-oak-tree, he would have got every one of them. This ended the digging for that kind of money in that region in my time…”<br />
<br />Dan Wilkenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16667142637286557545noreply@blogger.com0