Hometown: South Kingstown, RI
Branch: U.S. Navy
Unit: Nonsuch
Date of Sacrifice: August 23, 1819 - near Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Age: 34
Conflict: No declared conflict

Oliver Hazard Perry was a naval commander and hero of the War of 1812. With a daring victory over the mighty British Royal Navy on Lake Erie, Perry played an important role in securing the Great Lakes and establishing U.S. sovereignty over Michigan and Ohio territories.

Perry was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, on August 23, 1785, the oldest of eight children. According to the Naval History and Heritage Command: “The eldest of five sons and three daughters born to Christopher Raymond and Sarah Alexander Perry, the first son was named after his paternal grandmother’s father, Oliver Hazard, and also for his uncle, Oliver Hazard Perry, who had recently been lost at sea.”

His father, Christopher Raymond Perry, served as a privateer during the American Revolution. With no established navy, the new Continental Congress “encouraged patriotic private citizens to harass British shipping while risking their lives and resources for financial gain,” according to the National Parks Service.

Young Oliver Perry spent part of his youth sailing with his father and became a midshipman by the time he turned 13. The elder Perry served as a captain in the nascent U.S. Navy during the Quasi-War with France (1798-1801)—a conflict over trading rights in the Caribbean.

Navy Career

Oliver Perry participated in his first sea battle off the coast of Haiti during the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), which established a second independent country in the Americas and was another step in ending the control of the western hemisphere by European colonial powers.

Perry would also serve his country in the U.S. Navy during the Tripolitan War (1801-1805) against the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. He’d serve on some of the young U.S. Navy’s most famous ships, although he was not involved in any of their most important engagements: the Adams, Constellation, Nautilus, Essex, and Constitution.

In 1809, Perry supervised the construction of small gunboats in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Naval History and Heritage Command notes that this was “a duty he considered tedious, until, in April 1809, [when] he received his first seagoing command, the 14-gun schooner Revenge.”

Perry’s first command ended badly on January 8, 1811. While surveying harbors along Block Island Sound off his home state of Rhode Island, Revenge was sailing in heavy fog off Watch Hill Point. The vessel struck a reef and sank. A court-martial cleared Perry of any fault, instead blaming the schooner’s pilot.

Perry took an extended leave of absence and married Elizabeth Champlin Mason in Newport, Rhode Island on May 5, 1811. The two had met four years earlier at a dance, and would eventually welcome five children—one of whom died as an infant.

War of 1812 and the Battle of Lake Erie

Not yet three decades removed from the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the United States again declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812. Disputes over territorial expansion, trade restrictions, and British impressment of American seamen forced the young country to take on the greatest naval power in the world—with a Navy that was short on ships and experienced officers.

Perry’s rise to national fame came on September 10, 1813, in the Battle of Lake Erie—also known as the Battle of Put-In-Bay. He’d been sent to Erie, Pennsylvania the prior February to complete construction of a squadron to challenge British control of the Great Lakes. By September, he had a fleet of ten small vessels and was ready to engage.

His new fleet was superior to the enemy’s—but only in short-range firepower. When he encountered six British warships under the command of Captain Robert H. Barclay, light winds prevented him from closing quickly enough to leverage his short-range advantage.

Perry’s flagship, the Lawrence, suffered heavy damage and was disabled as the battle began. He transferred to the Niagra, along with his “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP” banner.

Boldly sailing directly into Barclay’s British fleet, Niagra fired broadside on the Royal Navy ships, winning the Battle of Lake Erie within 15 minutes. In a report to Major General (and later, U.S. President) William Henry Harrison following the victory, Perry wrote the famous message that would be immortalized in U.S. Naval history: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”

The victory helped ensure American control of Lake Erie, forced the British to abandon Detroit, and led to U.S. expansion in the Ohio and Michigan territories.

Diplomatic mission to Venezuela

Promoted to Captain, Perry was chosen to lead an important diplomatic mission in June 1819 to negotiate an anti-piracy agreement in Angostura, Venezuela. Yellow fever was said to be a problem in the capital city.

Because of the shallowness of the Orinoco River, Perry transferred his flag from the frigate John Adams to the armed schooner Nonsuch for the last leg of his trip to Angostura.

After two and a half weeks in Angostura, Capt. Perry completed his mission. But twenty of his crewmen contracted yellow fever, five of whom died. Perry and the remaining Nonsuch crew hoped to escape the disease and hurry back to the fresh breezes at Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Before they could reach their destination, Capt. Perry came down with chills and a fever. His condition deteriorated rapidly, and Oliver Hazard Perry died from yellow fever on August 23, 1819—on his 34th birthday.

A monument to war and peace

Many monuments across the country honor Captain Perry, including the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial at Put-In-Bay, Ohio. The 352-foot Doric column overlooks Lake Erie, near Perry’s defining victory, and stands five miles from the border between Canada and the United States—the longest undefended border in the world.

Sources
National Park Service: Oliver Hazard Perry
Naval History and Heritage Command: Oliver Hazard Perry
Britannica: Oliver Hazard Perry
American Battlefield Plus: Oliver Hazard Perry
Toledo Museum of Art: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
Burial Site: Find a Grave