Another Maritime Adventure on Lake Erie-- Braving a Storm in a Leaky River Barge

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.

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, History of the Battle of Lake Erie, 1876):

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 (Fort) Schlosser 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 Cattaraugus, 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.

 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.

Samuel R Brown's Eyewitness Account of the Lake Erie- Thames Campaign 1813

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: Views of the Campaigns of the Northwest Army, and Views on Lake Erie, both printed in 1814.

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. 

 ...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...

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...

(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.

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.

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. 

Next up: Brown's account of the  amphibious operations which landed Harrison's Army on the Canadian shores near Fort Malden.

 

Sail Tracker

The Niagara after her initial restoration in 1913, at anchor with the USS Wolverine (a civil-war era gunship that for a long time was the only US warship on the Great Lakes) and a steam yacht.
I hate that traditionally rigged sailing vessels (from sloop on up to full-rigged ship) are known as “tall ships”. The term seems so anachronistic, something a lubber would use. But for people interested in seeing a ship under sail (or in port), this tall ship tracking map will be useful.

The Niagara today with a more accurate hull. She is a brig-rigged warship (a brig of war, I think), with two masts.
In the Great Lakes region, we have the brig USS Niagara, which has timbers from the original brig that fought the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813. Her sister, the flagship USS Lawrence, was also sunk for preservation after the War of 1812 (vessels were sunk in shallow water so that their timbers wouldn’t rot, so they could be raised and refitted if need be). Unfortunately, when her keel was raised for the US International Exposition of 1876, the expo hall burned down, destroying her remains. The Lawrence was first restored in 1913 for the Centennial of the battle, and again restored in 1988.
I think I’ve been aboard the Niagara once before. She’s a small and simple warship, with a single gun deck, and a cramped spar deck below for the crew. Her clean, utilitarian lines are typical of wartime shipbuilding by the Brown brothers (who also built the first steam warship among other designs). During the summer months she usually cruises to different port cities along the Lakes, and her home port is in Erie, PA, where she was laid down long ago.

Demologos: Voice of the People

 

 

During the War of 1812-1815, the United States put up a valiant fight against England’s Royal Navy, which at the time was the most powerful fleet in the world. The pride of the small American fleet were its powerful 50-gun frigates, which outmatched their British counterparts. By the end of the war, however, the Royal Navy had improvised a new type of warship, the razee (a third rate ship of the line with its upper gun deck “razed” or cut down to become a large fourth or fifth rate: frigates were considered fifth or sixth rate ships), to counter “pocket battleships” like the Constitution. By the end of the war, nearly all of the American squadrons were bottled up in harbor.

The Americans soon began to develop “secret weapons” to even the playing field: even though many of these infernal devices never saw action, they foreshadowed a different kind of sea warfare. Robert Fulton was coordinating many of these projects: he developed a sea mine as well as a submarine. However, his most dramatic project was the steam frigate Demologos, constructed in New York Harbor between 1813 and 1815 by the Brown brothers shipbuilders (Adam and Noah Brown, who had built Master Commandant O.H. Perry’s squadron on Lake Erie in 1813).

The Demologos was a giant catamaran, with a boiler and steam engine housed in two hulls. A paddlewheel set between the hulls propelled the vessel. It was built with five-foot oak walls and mounted 16 thirty-two pounder guns. She was also fitted out with lanteen-rigged sails to aid her primitive propulsion system. She was launched in October 1814. After the death of Robert Fulton in February 1815, the steam battery’s name was changed to Fulton, but she was completed too late to see action during the war.

Following the war, she served mainly as a receiving ship (a floating barracks) in New York, until she was blown up in a magazine explosion on June 4, 1829. The construction of her replacement, Fulton II, was supervised by Commodore Matthew Perry, the same officer who opened Japan to foreign trade.

Over the years there has been much speculation over what Demologos would have done had she encountered a British squadron. Although she was described as a steam frigate, in terms of mobility she would only have had an advantage over a becalmed sailing vessel. What she really was was a mobile fort, capable of moving herself to guard strategic points in a harbor. Forts were reckoned to have had an automatic advantage when engaging ships (having a stationary platform makes gunlaying easier, and you can’t sink or dismast a fort). It is doubtful that Demologos would have become the blockade breaker that Confederate ironclads were during the American Civil War (and even those screw-propelled ships were barely seaworthy).

In the end, Demologos’ significance was as a harbinger of the end of the age of sail. In the 1840s and 50s new steam warships, armed with shell guns and propelled by screws, would revolutionize naval combat. The introduction of armor plate and ever larger guns would dominate naval architecture, culminating in the Dreadnaughts and super-Dreadnaughts launched in the 1910s. By World War One, Fulton’s other infernal devices, the sea mine and the submarine, began to make capital ship fleets irrelevant: Britain's Grand Fleet spend most of the Great War cowering in Scapa Flow for fear of mines and torpedoes.

Sources:

wikipedia.org: “Demologos” “Fulton II” “razee”

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-f/fulton.htm