Lost Lake Erie

THE EARLY DAYS

Lake Erie has played a pivotal role in history. As immigrants settled along its shores, major cities developed that became epicenters for industry, including Detroit, Michigan; Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Buffalo, New York, along with hundreds of smaller communities in between.

To understand why so many have been drawn to Lake Erie’s shores, let’s start with its geology. Its basin was carved out thousands of years ago by glaciers and rivers. Several layers of beach ridges, found miles away from the present shoreline, were left behind from larger versions of the lake that existed before our modern lake, many of which became routes followed by animals and pioneers and are now often roads. Because of this, the lake and its shoreline are a major source of minerals, including sandstone, salt, sand, gypsum, limestone and natural gas.

Lake Erie is the southernmost of the five North American Great Lakes, bordered by the Canadian province of Ontario to the north, the state of New York to the east, Pennsylvania and Ohio to the south and Michigan to the west. It’s the fourth largest by surface area and smallest by volume. It’s also the shallowest, with an average depth of just sixty-two feet, which means its waters can change quickly depending on the weather, reacting like Jell-O in a giant bowl—a comparison made by my youngest son, when you touch it, it makes waves in it.

Many a sailor has been caught off guard on the open waters of Lake Erie when the wind whips up, creating powerful waves up to thirteen feet high, tossing them around like toy boats in a bathtub. Due to these treacherous waters, about two thousand shipwrecks are scattered along the lake’s floor, and only about four hundred have been discovered, making it among the highest concentration of shipwrecks in the world.

Lake Erie at sunset. Photo by author.

The lake is mainly fed by the Detroit River from Lake St. Clair and drains into the Niagara River and Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. It may be small, but it is a powerful gatekeeper, connecting the ocean with the upper Great Lakes, allowing immigrants and commerce to cross and spread westward to grow our nation. Like hot lava, it all boils from the lake, spreading knowledge and power outward.

It has been an important shipping route, recreational destination, catalyst for business and industry and an important source of fresh water for millions of people.

FIRST INHABITANTS

Native Americans, and later pioneers, were drawn to its shorelines, like the Erie Indians, for whom the lake is named, an Iroquoian group that lived in clusters of large longhouses, surrounded by palisade walls, according to Jeff Sherry of the Hagan History Center.

They lived in northern Ohio, parts of northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York and were known by the French in Canada as the Cat Nation, likely referencing raccoons, panthers or the large number of wildcats in the region.

The Eries were often at war with other Native American tribes, mainly over the fur trade, and were believed to be conquered by the powerful Iroquois Confederacy during the Beaver Wars in 1655. (Since the Iroquois were in what is now the state of New York, they had the advantage of trading with European settlers along the East Coast and acquired more powerful weapons.)

The Iroquois continued to use the land around Lake Erie as hunting grounds until about 1700, when their power waned. Around the same time, other Native American tribes moved into the land, including the Mingo, Ojibwe, Ottawa and Wyandot tribes.

In the 1600s, Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be discovered by French explorers, who followed rivers and waterways down from the northwest, since the Iroquois, who occupied the Niagara River, were in conflict with the French and didn’t allow explorers to pass through.

The land near Lake Erie has also been the site of many Native American battles, including the Battle of Fallen Timbers, which took place on the Maumee River, near present-day Toledo, in 1794. It was a battle over land between the American people pushing to expand westward in the old Northwest Territory and the Native Americans. It resulted in the Indians ceding much of present-day Ohio, which became a state several years later.

Anthony Wayne’s defeat of American Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Library of Congress.

French map showing the Great Lakes, 1755. Library of Congress.

As pioneers expanded westward in the early nineteenth century, Lake Erie remained a crucial gateway to the new territory and become a critical epicenter for the War of 1812.

BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE

The phrase Don’t give up the ship has been a rallying cry for centuries. These words can be seen on coffee mugs and T-shirts, particularly in Erie, Pennsylvania, known as Flagship City since it was the home port of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s flagship, Niagara.

During the War of 1812, which began when the United States declared war on Britain, U.S. Navy Captain James Lawrence uttered these now famous last words to his crew when he was fatally shot by the British: Don’t give up the ship!

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 1917. Library of Congress.

Shortly after, when his friend and fellow naval officer Commodore Perry arrived in Erie, he renamed the USS Chesapeake the USS Lawrence after him, according to the website flagdom.com. He also wanted to create a battle flag to encourage his fleet, using Lawrence’s last words, so he hired Margaret Foster Steuart, an Erie seamstress, to make it.

Tensions had been brewing for some time, wrote Jeff Sherry on ErieHistory.org. Westward expansion of the fast-growing nation was stalled by native tribes of the Midwest and stirred by the British in Canada and by the impressment, basically kidnapping of American sailors on the high seas, all of which fanned the flames.

In August 1812, Fort Detroit, Mackinac and Fort Dearborn, in Chicago, all fell, resulting in British control of the Michigan Territory. Erie ship captain Daniel Dobbins was in Detroit when it fell and made his way back to Erie, where he convinced officials of the need to build a naval squadron on Lake Erie. According to Sherry, he knew just the place to do it: Erie.

Wood was certainly plentiful around the lakes…but skilled workers, sails, rigging, chains, nails, anchors, metal fittings, paint, guns, ammunition, and all the other necessary items were not, wrote Walter Topp on MilitaryHistoryNow.com.

Aerial view of Presque Isle Bay in Erie, Pennsylvania, circa 1950s. Hagen History Center.

A hastily constructed shipyard was built at the foot of today’s Cascade Street, where Dobbins built six ships, including the large brigs Lawrence and Niagara, with the natural bay formed by Presque Isle peninsula protecting them from Lake Erie’s harsh conditions.

The town of Erie could not even provide housing for the workers who were arriving to build the vessels. In fact, the influx of laborers led to food rationing, wrote Topp. "Even the wood was problematic. The brigs were to be fashioned from trees that had been growing in the forest just a few weeks before. Planks from green or unseasoned wood was [sic] prone to warping or splitting once the ships were launched."

But they couldn’t wait a year for the wood to dry. The fleet wasn’t being constructed to last decades but rather just long enough to win one pivotal battle.

Commodore Perry arrived in Erie that March and, as his fleet was being completed, drilled his crew in ship handling and gunnery skills.

Meanwhile, the British fleet out of Amherstburg, Ontario, at the western end of the lake, was also making ready for battle, wrote Sherry. Its commander, Robert Barclay, had similar problems to those of Perry. Short of men and supplies, Barclay sailed his nine ships to Long Point and established it as his headquarters. Barclay effectively blockaded Perry’s squadron inside Presque Isle Bay and should have attacked but instead withdrew toward the western end of the lake on July 31, 1813.

Days later, Perry’s fleet sailed out into the lake, but the Niagara and Lawrence were too big to cross the sandbar at the mouth of the bay, so camels, large wooden barges filled with water, were attached to the brigs’ sides. When pumped out, the ships were lifted high enough to pass over the sandbar refitted with the rigging and other weight that had made passage impossible, noted Sherry. Perry’s fleet set sail for the western end of Lake Erie in search of Barclay.

At dawn on September 10, in Lake Erie near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, Perry readied his men for battle, which didn’t include Dobbins because he was sent back to Erie for supplies (he later said that missing the battle was one of his greatest regrets).

As Perry approached six British warships, he was determined to end the naval campaign on Lake Erie that day. The nine-ship fleet he commanded had been built for this exact moment, and this moment only. If he lost the coming battle his ships would be destroyed, the British would control the lake, and America’s Northwest Territory would likely be lost. There would be no opportunity to try again, wrote Topp.

Early in the battle, the British took a heavy toll on the American ships, mainly because their cannons were more accurate at long distances. When the British attacked the Lawrence, at least 75 percent of its crew were killed, and it was so badly damaged that Perry transferred ships, along with his flag, by taking a small longboat to the nearby Niagara. Once on board, Perry guided the Niagara into battle.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry being transferred from the U.S. brig Lawrence to the U.S. brig Niagara. Library of Congress.

"Before Perry’s arrival on the Niagara, the ship had hardly engaged the British fleet," according to OhioHistoryCentral.org. "Now, the Niagara and Perry inflicted heavy cannon fire on the British ships. The commander of every British ship was killed or wounded, leaving the British ships under the command of junior officers with limited experience. Perry took advantage of this situation. The Niagara rammed the British lead ship while the sailors fired rifles at the British seamen."

"With Captain Barclay mortally wounded aboard his flagship Detroit, the British ship began to ‘strike their colors,’ meaning lowering their flags, as sign of surrender, wrote Sherry. Perry had won the Battle of Lake Erie. Oliver Hazard Perry would be hailed as a national hero, and the United States, like Perry, was lucky in the remaining War of 1812. It was the first time in U.S. naval history that an entire enemy fleet had been captured. Following his victory, twenty-seven-year-old Perry famously wrote, We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."

After the battle, Perry and his men returned to Presque Isle Bay to repair their fleet and seek medical treatment for their wounded, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The Niagara served as a navy receiving ship until it was sunk for preservation, near the Lawrence, in Misery Bay in 1820, a circular inlet near the end of Presque Isle peninsula. Nearly a century later, in 1912, the Niagara was raised and rebuilt for the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie in 1913.

Those enlisted men who were killed in the battle were stitched up into their hammocks, with a cannonball placed at their feet, and their bodies committed to the deep to await the resurrection, when the sea shall give up her dead, wrote William G. Krejci in Lost Put-in-Bay. Tradition held that officers were to be buried on land. Commodore Perry stuck to this tradition. Three American and three British officers were killed in that engagement. Rather than burying them in separate respective burial sites, Perry chose to inter these men together, in one mass grave as equals.

As noted in Sketches and Stories of the Lake Erie Islands, written by Lydia Jane Ryall in 1913, nearly half a century after the battle, many of the survivors returned to Put-in-Bay to visit the grave on the island, marked by a tree known as the Perry willow. The willow, according to local tradition, grew from a shoot imbedded in the mound by a survivor a few days after the battle, notes Ryall’s book. It took root in the fertile soil and became a stately tree, serving as the only marked place upon the graves.

Rebuilt Niagara, 1923. Author’s collection.

The tree was observed and photographed by thousands until it began showing signs of decay and fell to earth when scarce a breath of air was stirring in 1900; islanders allegedly sawed away bits of the tree as souvenirs.

Perry’s victory is commemorated at Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial on Put-in-Bay. His sword and telescope, used in the battle, are on display at the Hagen History Center in Erie, and a reconstructed Niagara sits at the Erie Maritime Museum, in the harbor where the original was once constructed.

Author’s note: As a reporter for WSEE-TV in Erie in the mid-2000s, I once sailed aboard Niagara for a day sail as a feature news story. It was an incredible experience and one of my favorite stories I’ve had the privilege of covering. It made history come to life!

JOHNSON’S ISLAND

Half a century later, Lake Erie was again playing a central role in a war, this time the Civil War.

The Lincoln administration realized that the Union needed more capacity to house prisoners of war and that northern Ohio, far from the frontlines, was an ideal location. In October 1861, Lieutenant-Colonel William Hoffman, the Union’s commissary-general for prisoners, was ordered to build a new prison among the Lake Erie islands…and to complete the project as quickly as possible, according to Chad Fraser in Lake Erie Stories.

Hoffman quickly sailed the islands aboard the Island Queen, looking for an appropriate