Ohio History Journal

THE CENTENNIAL OF PERRY'S VICTORY.

 

 

BY G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

President Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

At a quarter before twelve o'clock, September 10, 1812, the

first gun was fired in the memorable naval victory of the Ameri-

can fleet in Lake Erie under the command of Commodore Oliver

Hazard Perry over the English fleet commanded by Commodore

Robert H. Barclay. As time passes the significance of this

victory assumes greater, and greater proportions in the eyes of

all students of history. The significance of the combat, however,

does not consist in the size of the contending fleets or of the

numbers of the seamen and soldiers who were engaged. The

British ships were only six in number, and bore only sixty-three

carriage guns, one on a pivot, two swivels, and four Howitzers.

Perry's ships though numbering nine vessels bore but fifty-four

carriage guns and two swivels. On the British ships there were

but 500 men, and upon the American but 490, of whom 116 were

sick. But when at three o'clock in the afternoon the flag of the

British squadron was lowered and the entire force surrendered

to Commodore Perry, a turning point had been reached in the

history of North America.

General Harrison, with an army of several thousand volun-

teers, had been awaiting the turn of events for some time at

Fort Seneca, nine miles south of Fort Stevenson, where Major

Croghan on the 3d of August won his remarkable victory over

the combined force of the British and Indians under General

Proctor. Croghan's victory and the retreat of Proctor's army

opened the way for Harrison to move his forces nearer to the

Lake shore so as to be prepared for such action as should be

dependent upon the outcome of the approaching naval contest.

It was while effecting this movement of his troops that Harrison

received the laconic report of Commodore Perry: "We have met

the enemy, and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner,

Vol. XXIII-4.           49

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50       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.   and one sloop. Yours, with great respect and esteem, 0. H. Perry." The sequel is well known. General Harrison proceeded to haul his arms and supplies across the portage from the head of

Sandusky Bay to the shore of Lake Erie at Port Clinton, built a fence across the neck of Marblehead Peninsula where his 5,000 cavalry and mounted infantry, mostly from Kentucky, could leave their horses in good pasture, while Perry's ships conveyed the army to the Canadian shore enabling them completely to

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.       51

 

rout the British army at the Battle of the Thames on the 5th of

October.

As was mentioned by a number of the speakers at the Cen-

tennial celebration, the destruction of the British fleet upon

Lake Erie determined the future of all the northwestern terri-

tory, now a part of the United States, west of the Alleghenies

and north of the Ohio River. Had the victory been with Com-

modore Barclay, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin,

Iowa and the Dakotas, instead of being states of the Union

would have been provinces in the Dominion of Canada.

It was fitting, therefore, that the Centennial celebration of

this victory should be one of the most memorable in our history.

Nine states had contributed liberally for the erection of the

noble monument which at Put-in-Bay, where Perry's fleet had

been assembled, looks out upon the waters to the northwest

where the celebrated naval contest was waged. Eight of the

governors of these states, each with his staff and numerous dis-

tinguished citizens, were present to give dignity to the exercises.

The Governor of New York (Sulzer) sent his regrets, saying

that he was detained by unavoidable circumstances.

As the time approached for the celebration to begin, the

harbor at Put-in-Bay was crowded with steamers and yachts

which had come in from every direction, all decorated in com-

memoration of the occasion. But attention was chiefly directed

to the Niagara, the flag ship of Commodore Perry. This ship

after various experiences had sunk in the harbor of Erie, Penn-

sylvania, and there remained for nearly a hundred years. But

in preparation for this Centennial celebration the bulk had been

raised and the ship put in repair on its original lines so that as

it appeared it was an exact duplicate of it as it entered the

engagement a hundred years ago. At exactly a quarter to twelve

o'clock, September 10, 1913, marking a hundred years since the

first gun of the engagement was fired, twenty-one cannon fired

salutes from half a dozen naval militia ships riding at anchor in

the bay, and the gavel fell in the coliseum where a great assem-

blage had gathered in honor of the event.

George H. Worthington of Cleveland, President of the

Perry's Victory Centennial Commissioners, called the assemblage

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52        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

to order and introduced Governor James M. Cox of Ohio as

chairman of the meeting. In introducing ex-President Taft,

who was to be the principal speaker, Governor Cox spoke as

follows:

"One hundred years ago, from this very hour, within sight

of the island on which we assemble, the naval forces of two

great nations were in the bitter clash of war. Today representa-

tives of the same great powers congregate in peace. A century

ago it was the conflict of passion, today the fraternity of brothers.

The flags of both fleets were then enveloped in the fire of powder

and the crash of canister; today, sated by the blood of many

battles, and glorified by the valor of new generations, they stand

together majestic symbols of a common ancestry. Then the

waters ran red with the gory price of battle and chanted a solemn

requiem to many brave souls; today they reflect the blue of

heaven and sing aloud the hallelujahs of peace. Then the issue

of war drove men together in a spirit of destruction; now the

impulse of a greater day assembles their sons in a conclave of

good will. What a tribute these changing scenes are to the

evolution of the race!

The Commonwealth of Ohio, proud of her contribution to

our national life, rejoices in the glorious honor of this day, of

bidding welcome to the envoys of two nations, and joining with

them in the formal dedication of this magnificent temple of

peace. We are not here to exult over a victory of war. The

victories of peace achieved on this day, September 10, 1913,

inspire emotions that give place to no thought of the bitterness

of a hundred years ago. A century of peace is more glorious

in the imagination of man than the combined valor of all the

warriors of all time. We stand close to the longest boundary

line on the globe-not marked nor marred by fortress, unpro-

faned by either cannon or bayonet. Poets may sing the virtues

of our race, but this is its greatest achievement.

It seems almost divine arrangement that here, within sight

of the islands of Canada, there should be builded on this day,

the centenary of peace, a light to shine throughout the everlasting

nights of time, as a beacon guide to the crafts of nations, and

the conscience of the ages. Here we bury together the remains

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54        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of American and British sailors who died in the battle of Lake

Erie. It matters not that their sacred bones are without national

identity. They were heroes, every one! They sprang from the

loins of a common ancestry. The infinite alchemy of time will

mix their dust in this historic urn, and the priceless treasure

belongs alike to the American Republic, to England and to

Canada.

God grant that this mutuality of interest will inspire greater

things, and that the greatest Republic and her dependencies, and

the greatest Empire and her dependencies, joining hands across

the seas, will cricle the globe and as messengers of peace control,

within their span, the even balanced amity of all nations, by

maintaining forever the creed of, "Peace on earth, good will to

men."

ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT.

Address of William H. Taft at the dedication of the Perry

Memorial at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, September 10, 1913, the centenary

of the battle of Lake Erie:

A century ago today this Bay was made famous by a battle.

Today we meet to dedicate a great and beautiful monument to

those who took part. Rhode Island that gave us Perry, and all

the States that furnished the brave men who fought under him,

are properly represented here to claim a share in the honorable

heritage of glory. In the retrospect of one hundred years we can

weigh its significance. Nothing has developed in those years

to diminish the courage, patriotism and skill of the Commander

and his men as they appeared to their contemporaries. But the

consequences of the battle and the war, of which it was one of

the few bright spots in a field of gloom, were strikingly benefi-

cent, and promise to grow even more so in the second century

upon which we are entering.

But let me now refer to the men who built the fleet, who

equipped and armed the ships, who gave their crews such train-

ing and discipline as they had, who led the fighting from the

decks of two flagships and wrested victory from what seemed

certain defeat.

Oliver Hazard Perry was born in Rhode Island on the 23rd

of August, 1785. His maternal great grandfather, whose name

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        55

 

he bore, was a Quaker, and he was not the first or the last of

the descendants of that peace-loving stock who have become

noted in the world's history as military heroes. His father was

a sea captain who had fought for his country in battles upon

sea and land in the Revolution, had been through the awful

horrors of the Jersey prison ships, had escaped, had again been

captured and imprisoned for eighteen months in Ireland, and

during his long life, thereafter, had alternated as an officer of

the United States Navy and as the master of merchantmen. His

son thus inherited the love of the sea, and entered the Navy as

a midshipman before he was fourteen years of age. His mind

was active, he was interested in his profession, and he devoted

himself to perfecting his knowledge of navigation and the mili-

tary art.  I shall not dwell upon the details of his history,

crowded as it is with his activities. He sought in vain a com-

mand of one of the small ships of the navy which was con-

structed in a hurry for war service on the ocean of 1812. He

finally found his opportunity in the construction and promised

command of a fleet at Erie, with a view to taking from England

the control of this important inland sea. The difficulties he had

in getting the proper material for the construction, equipment

and armament of his vessel, much of which had to be hauled

through the wilderness from Albany and Pittsburg, would itself

form a story of official energy and devotion noteworthy in the

annals of any country. The indifference of his superiors to his

incessant demand for sailors and marines sufficient to man his

vessels, and their utter inconsistency in pressing him before he

was prepared to take the offensive, rouse one's deep impatience

as he reads; but the event in the light of his difficulties served

to show the greatness of the man and his genius for adapting

himself to the exigencies of the hour. A substantial part of his

force were on the sick list, and he had to metamorphose a con-

siderable percentage of brave sharpshooting pioneer Kentuckians

into jack tars in a few days. His capacity for training and dis-

ciplining was striking. As we read the tonnage of his fleet and

the number of men that he had to fight, and compare his arma-

ment with that which would go into a modern naval battle be-

tween great nations, we wonder at the smallness of the elements

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56        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. of such a world-wide victory, but when we note the almost hand- to-hand fight in which he was engaged, the awful percentage of slaughter upon the deck of his flagship rendering her helpless, his passage from one vessel to the other in an open boat, exposed

to the direct fire from the decks of these vessels at hardly pistol range, and then note how he took a second flagship and bore down upon his two formidable assailants, in the half exhausted condition in which his own attacks had left them, and made them strike their colors in ten minutes, we see one worthy to rank

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.         57

 

with Nelson and all the great naval commanders in history.

When he fought the battle he was not quite twenty-eight years

of age, the age of Napoleon at Lodi and Arcola, and of Nelson

at Cape St. Vincent.

It is difficult to read his life without falling in love with

his personality. His disposition was sweet and attractive. He

united with this, however, a stern sense of duty in the discipline

he maintained. He was as severe upon himself as upon any

member of his crew. High strung and quick to resent insult or

injustice, he was chivalrous to the last degree in waiving what

was due him in order to help a friend or avoid embarrassment

of his superiors at critical junctures. In the hour of victory he

manifested a charity toward the defects of some of his com-

rades who became basely treacherous and ungrateful, and he

suffered the pangs that come to a sensitive nature from the

poisoned shafts of envy and malice and personal betrayal. Ex-

alted to the position of a national hero, to which a victory like

his in the gloom of general defeat and disappointment naturally

brought him, he bore his honors with a modesty that adds to

one's love of his memory. Guilty, under great provocation, of

threatening assault upon a subordinate officer, he did penance

by a quick apology and subsequently met him upon the so-called

field of honor, received his fire without return, not, as he said,

in order to satisfy the honor of his assailant, but rather in pen-

ance for his violation of his duty as a commander and his breach

of naval discipline.

In his hour of victory, too, he devoted all the influence that

he had to securing the parole of his gallant antagonist who had

been an officer under Nelson, and succeeded in restoring him to

his English home without subjecting him to the suffering and

privation of imprisonment. He had much to contend against in

naval bureaucracy at Washington, much to complain of in its

failure to support him at times of stress, but throughout his

short and brilliant career, he maintained the highest level of

equanimity, patriotism and devotion to duty.

Upon his thirty-fourth birthday Oliver Hazard Perry passed

from this earth, the victim of a tropical fever, at the mouth of

the Orinoco. He had been sent as a naval ambassador to deal

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58        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

with the Venezuelan government at Angoztura, far up that great

river under the equator, at a time when a temporary residence

there was as full of danger as even a naval battle in that age.

His suffering in the stifling heat and amid the clouds of stinging

insects in the narrow confines of a small cabin of a small

schooner is hard for us to appreciate, in view of the conditions

that surround such missions at the present day. But we find the

gloomy atmosphere of that dark cabin illuminated by his inmost

thoughts committed to writing, in which he manifests his high

ideals of manhood, of many virtues, of patriotism and self-

sacrifice; and we lay down the record of his life and drop a

tear upon its tragic closing, thousands of miles away from that

loving wife who was fondly and impatiently awaiting his return.

We can truly place him among the great heroes of history, and

thank God for the beneficence of his great example.

He was a product of a war that added but few to the list

of our national heroes. With the name of Perry we may put

Jackson and Harrison and McDonough as military commanders

and men who upheld the honor of the nation and its prestige

as a warlike people. There were commanders of single vessels

like Decatur and Lawrence and Porter, who brought recognition

to the little navy of the United States, and showed that they

came of the same race as Nelson, but their victories were not

productive of great military result in the sense of giving com-

mand of territory or ending a campaign. It is true that the

naval duels of single vessels, in which Americans were success-

ful, did much to injure the then commanding prestige of the

British navy, and the activity of the navy of the regular United

States establishment and of the privateers inflicted such injuries

upon British commerce as to be one of the chief reasons for

the willingness of England to make peace, but the naval battles

were hand to hand conflicts, and did not involve the exercise

of grand strategy or the subjugation of armies.

The consequences of a war are frequently not at all in pro-

portion to the men engaged, the losses in killed and wounded,

the destruction in property, or the cost. Our late war with Spain

was comparatively bloodless, and the number of battles was

small, yet the consequences were momentous. They changed

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        59

 

the status of our government among nations. They widened our

relations into those of a great world power, controlling territory

in two hemispheres; and they thrust upon us a duty to alien

peoples that we could not escape, and that if we recognize our

proper obligations, we can not relieve ourselves from in several

generations.

And so the War of 1812, ending by mutual consent because

of a tired feeling on the part of both countries, left no definite

disposition of the question that caused the war in the treaty that

closed it. Yet the right of search was abandoned by England,

and under a treaty made three years later neither nation has for

a century fortified the four thousand miles of the boundary

between them, or floated war ships on the great stretches of

water that mark it. No one would have been so bold, when the

treaty was signed, to prophesy this consequence.

Three times at least has amity between the two peoples been

brought nearly to a breaking test. The Oregon boundary dispute,

when the cry in this country was "fifty-four forty or fight,"

almost led the two nations to arms again. Through the states-

manship of Daniel Webster and Lord Ashbarten, a new treaty

was made and ratified, and the danger was passed.

Again, in the Mason and Slidall affair during the Civil War,

we were guilty of the same fault toward England that she on

her part had so often committed against us before the War of

1812. The Trent affair might have led to consequences that we

hate to contemplate, but through the wisdom of our beloved

Abraham Lincoln, and of the good Queen Victoria, that danger

passed.

And then again over the Venezuelan boundary our declara-

tions were so positive and undiplomatic in demanding an arbi-

tration and in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, that it seemed

difficult to find a way out and satisfy the amour propre of both

countries. Better counsels prevailed, and the treaty of Ghent

still stood.

So we celebrate the centenary of this battle, not in the spirit

of a triumphal victory of arms, but in the deep gratitude that

one hundred years has not seen its repetition. No historical

review can give as much satisfaction to him that hopes for per-

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manent, international peace, as the contrast between the attitude

of the two peoples then and now. England's attitude was that

of resentment at having lost her most important colonies, of con-

tempt for republican form of government, of the spirit of re-

action from popular rule manifested later by Metternich and the

Congress of Vienna, and of intolerance as mistress of the seas

in which she recognized no right on the part of the navy or

sailors of the United States which her predominating navy was

bound to respect. Our attitude was that of a people still strug-

gling for national strength and unity, and greatly divided in

sentiment by political lines, in respect of the war. Seafaring

New England saw her commerce being carried to destruction by

embargoes and legalized piracy in the form of privateering, and

could not understand why England should be selected as our sole

antagonist, while France, who had equally ignored our rights

upon the sea, and outraged our national feeling, was permitted

to take her course without any hostile measure. They believed

that the war was entered upon without sufficient consideration,

and that the real sacrifices in the war were to be made by New

England in undue proportion. The truth is, while the war was

entirely justified by the injustice of England in asserting an

intolerable claim to the right of search, we study its campaigns

and its battles with only here and there a thrill of pride and satis-

faction, but generally with irritation over our mismanagement,

poor strategy, wastefulness and lack of successful concerted

action. The victories of Perry here, of Harrison at the Thames,

of McDonough at Plattsburgh, and of Jackson at New Orleans,

are the great bright lights that shine out of a dark background

of defeat and humiliation. We find the spirit of booty and

plunder attracting regular naval vessels and eager privateers on

each side to prey upon the commerce of the other. A cruel,

sordid spirit sometimes manifested itself in the actual transac-

tions on both sides that leaves a bad flavor for the historical

student.

To those who say there will always be war, and that one

hundred years can make no difference in the possibility or proba-

bility of recurring international combats, we might well com-

mend the difference in the real spirit that prevailed between the

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        61

 

United States and Canada and Great Britain one hundred years

ago just after the war, and that which prevails today. Indeed,

we might go further and commend to their consideration the

contrast between the warlike policies of European nations when

Perry lived, and the peace securing effect of the entente cordial

between Great Britain and France, or of the dual alliance be-

tween Russia and France, and of the triple alliance between

Germany and Austria and Italy and the efforts of all the sub-

stantial European nations to bring about peace in the Balkans.

The effort now among these great nations is much less for

forcible aggrandizement, so conspicuous a feature of their na-

tional sins one hundred years ago. War now rarely comes save

when the people of a nation yield to the warlike spirit and urge

their leaders on, and the danger of war is from the passion of

the people and not from the ambition of their rulers. It was

in many respects exactly the opposite case, one hundred years

ago. We need not say that the great nations are not still selfish

in their statesmanship, and that there is not room for much

greater altruism and much greater self-sacrifice for humanity

than exist today, but speaking comparatively, the restraints upon

the nations of a moral character in their foreign policy are far

weightier than ever they were in the century past. This is due

to an improvement in government. The success of popular rule

in the United States exercised a potent influence in every coun-

try in Europe. There is no European monarch today who does

not feel the force of public opinion, who does not respect it,

and who would not prefer to yield to its demands. A monarch

who goes into a war today knows that his own sovereignty is

in the balance and that by defeat his dynasty may be forfeit.

Hence the sincere reluctance of all the responsible powers to

engage in war.

Everything is not as we would have it. The armaments of

Europe are burdensome to an unjustifiable degree. I doubt if

they are heavier when the taxable resources and the population

are considered than they were in olden times, but measured in

the money of today they seem greatly heavier. Still their cost

in themselves constitutes a drug upon the warlike passions of

rulers and of people and the enormous sacrifice that war entails

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and the extravagance of the financial losses that it involves, due

to the necessity of such armaments and their renewal in case of

war, all make for peace, and all lead to the furnishing of some

solution by compromise of the controversies between nations.

This different attitude toward war has bettered the relations of

all the responsible nations of the world, has elevated the pro-

fession of diplomacy from a game of cunning to advocacy by

moral argument and an appeal to the sense of justice of the

civilized world.

Lord Haldane, the Lord High Chancellor of England, at

the recent meeting of the American Bar Association, drew a con-

trast that was full of sweetness and light on the subject of inter-

national relations. The subject matter of his address was what

he described by the use of the German phrase "Sittlichkeit." It is

that code of good conduct which has neither sanction of law on

the one hand, and which is not included within the jurisdiction

and penalty of personal conscience, on the other.  It is the

influence of settled social opinion upon personal conduct. It is

what one's neighbor will say, in its effect upon a man's mode

of life and upon everything that he does before his fellows. It

is sometimes described as good form, a breach of which sub-

jects him to criticism of which he can not but be conscious, and

which he must anticipate if he departs form the path society

marks. And this sanction of good conduct Lord Haldane found

to be growing among the nations and had greater influence for

good among groups of peoples. He instanced England, Canada

and the United States with their common origin, laws and lan-

guage, as one such group. He thought that other nations simi-

larly related were developing social codes of good international

conduct. These, he said, were created without formal treaties,

without rigid resolutions, without an international police force.

Treaties also are useful even though they may sometimes

not stand the test and may be broken; but they are useful be-

cause they embody statements of high ideals of good inter-

national behavior. Sometimes they anticipate it and help to

form it. Sometimes they follow it and merely formulate it.

The instrumentality of neither of these influences is to be ignored

in the improvement toward better relations between nations and

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an approximation of the same moral responsibility for nations

in dealing with each other that both good form and law impose

upon individuals dealing with each other in society. It will

always be a source of regret to me that when England and

France were willing to enter into general and unlimited arbi-

tration treaties with us, and the treaties were signed, they failed

for lack of ratification by the Senate.  They would not have

made war any less probable between us and either England or

France than it is today, perhaps, because it does not seem pos-

sible in any event, but they would have put in substantial form

the actual spirit of our friendship for these countries and would

have held up an example of inestimable value to the civilized

world. Just so the century of natural good will and trust evi-

denced in our undefended boundary reaching from ocean to

ocean makes an object lesson to the nations that grows more

powerful as the decades pass.

And so we are here today to mark the rearing of this beacon

light of perpetual peace upon this unsalted sea that serves the

commerce of two great peoples. Little could Perry have thought

in the struggle that he had in building his puny fleet, in the stress

he was under in the height of the battle, in the victory that he

announced in his famous words to General Harrison, that his

work would be remembered for one hundred years as the har-

binger of a perpetual peace; and while we venerate the energy,

the integrity, the skill, the patriotism, the self-sacrifice that

brought him and his men their great triumph, today we cherish

not so much its evidence of American manhood and love of

country as the teaching that its memory brings to the world of

the practical possibility of unending love and peace between

international neighbors.

 

 

ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES A. MCDONALD.

Dr. James A. McDonald of Toronto, Canada, followed ev-

President Taft, with the following address:

One hundred years ago today, within sight of the spot where

we now stand, and at this very hour, was being fought the battle

of Lake Erie.

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64        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. In the light of modern naval warfare, judged by the standard of the super-dreadnought and the submarine, of the airship and the fourteen-inch gun, that battle was a small affair. Nine small sailing vessels on one side, six on the other, not more than three out of the fifteen being of any account even in that day, and not a thousand men all told, of whom the major part were not seamen at all-such were the forces that met in the battle of Lake Erie. One gun from a modern man-of-war would throw

more metal in one charge than their entire broadsides, and would shatter both fleets in the twinkling of an eye. As a struggle between man and man, and as an incident in the war of which it formed a part, the battle of Lake Erie has its own interest and its own importance. It deserves to be re- membered. In the heroism displayed, heroism on both sides, heroism in the seasoned sailors, heroism among the raw men from the shore, it is worthy of a place of high honor in these centennial celebrations. Like the equally decisive battles in which the Canadians were victorious, the battles of Chrysler's Farm and of Chateauguay, this battle of Lake Erie, which gave

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victory to the Americans, had in it incidents of valor and en-

durance on both sides of which neither country needs to be

ashamed.

In the light of the hundred years through which we of to-day

read the story of that one battle, and of that whole war, the

lesson, the supreme and abiding lesson, for the United States

and for Canada, is this: the utter futility and inconsequence of

war as a means for the just settlement of disputes between these

two nations. That lesson we both have learned. That war was

our last war. It will remain our last. Never again will the

armored troops of the United States and Canada meet except in

friendly review, or, if the day ever comes, to stand side by side

and shoulder to shoulder in the Armageddon of the nations.

Witness these great lakes for nigh a hundred years swept clean

of every battleship, and this transcontinental boundary line for

four thousand miles undefended save by the civilized instincts

and the intelligent good-will of both nations. And having

learned that great lesson, having proved its worth through a hun-

dred years, the United States and Canada, these two English-

speaking peoples of America, have earned the right to stand up

and teach the nations. International peace and good-will is

America's message to all the world.

Go back to the battle of Lake Erie. Read the impartial

story of that war. Mark how futile it was, how inconsequent,

even how inglorious. See how it left unsettled the points alleged

to be in dispute between Britain and the United States-rights

of neutrals in war, the right of search, the unfixed boundary-

points which were settled after the war was over by agreement

and treaty, and not by brute force.

What lay behind the War of 1812? That war was declared

by the United States against Britain. Its primal cause, however,

was not American at all, but European. The United States was

involved only indirectly and Canada not at all. The vital issue

lay rather in the struggle, in the age-long European struggle, of

free nationhood against the barbaric notion of world-empire.

Great Britain stood for the rights of free nationhood. The

dream of world-empire found its last tragic expression in the

vaulting ambition and matchless brain of the great Napoleon.

Vol. XXIII-5.

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In that struggle Britain stood alone. Italy, Holland, Austria.

Prussia, Spain, one after another all bowed low to Bonaparte's

masterful will on bloody fields of war. Even Russia, apart and

impregnable among her snows, came to terms. All the nations

of Europe yielded up their strength for the service of Napoleon,

and, obedient to his decree, at Berlin and Milan they refused

commercial relations with the one nation which defied the

Colossus that bestrode the world. Had he won, had his despot's

dream come true, then the glory of free nationhood, not for

Europe alone, but for Britain and perhaps for the world, had

passed, and, it may be, had passed forever.

That struggle meant life or death for Britain. Had Napo-

leon succeeded in throwing all of Britain's foreign trade into

neutral hands it could mean only death. In that struggle, as the

statesmen of England then saw it, there was no room for neutral

trading nations. Neutral rights, as manipulated by Napoleon,

meant the immediate destruction of Britain's commercial inde-

pendence. In the end it meant, not the prosperity of the

neutrals, but Napoleon's domination of the world.

The War of 1812 was declared by the United States for the

purpose of asserting her trading rights as a neutral in the war

that involved Europe. When the European situation was solved

by the overthrow of Napoleon and his banishment to Elba, the

alleged causes of the war between Britain and the United States

became purely academic, and in the treaty of peace, signed in

1814, those points in dispute were not even mentioned. Indeed,

it was not until 1856, in the Declaration of Paris, that the rights,

the just rights, of neutrals were established among the nations.

This last war between the two great English-speaking world-

powers was proved, proved in itself, proved by the history of its

issues, to be fruitless for good to either nation, unless it be

taken as convincing evidence of war's incurable futility.

Not only is war ineffectual as a means for the just settle-

ment of disputes between civilized nations, but by the very irony

of fate, most wars have reactions quite the opposite of their

original intention. The undesigned reactions of war are the

surprises of history.

In the 13th century and after, the Dukes of Austria tried,

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.         67

 

by sheer brute power, to tighten their feudal grasp on the free

peasantry of the Alpine valleys. The result of their wars was

Austria's humiliation and shame. Out of the struggle for liberty

was born a new Switzerland, united, free, invincible.

The Battle of Bannockburn, in the 1₄th century, tells the

same story. England's feudal king sought to lord it as sovereign

over what had hitherto been the wild and divided North.

Proud Edward's power was broken. Scotland was united. Out

of "oppression's woes and pains" comes a new and sturdy nation

with its deathless slogan, "Scots wha hae."

In the 18th century the aggressive war party in Britain,

against the better judgment and the finer instincts of the nation,

and in the teeth of the eloquent protests of Pitt and Burke, in

the blindness of the mere bureaucrat determined, by the sword if

needs be, to coerce to their own policy the free-born colonies in

America. Their folly went wide of the mark. They failed, as

they were bound to fail. Instead of a larger domain and more

efficient power, Britain lost her first empire. Out of the storm

and stress, the American Colonies, North and South, just because

they were sons of the British breed, arose, a welded nation,

holding on high their Declaration of Independence.

Similarly in 1812 the dominant war-party in this new-born

Republic, blind to the real genius of the nation, deaf to the warn-

ings of its highest instincts, and in defiance of the recorded

protests of some of the greatest of its States, cherished the hope

of shifting its northern boundary from the Great Lakes to the

Arctic and making the Republic coterminous with the continent.

They also failed. The Fates were against them, too. The

Canadian pioneers, they, also, were men of British blood. The

undesigned reaction of the war of 1812 is the Canada of to-day.

Let there be no mistake. The readings of history are plain.

In the pangs of 1812 the soul of Canadian nationality began to be

born. That war was indeed Canada's national war. In it the

United States was divided, Britain was reluctant, but Canada

was in grim and deadly earnest. All Canadians-the French-

Canadians in the valley of the St. Lawrence, the colonists from

Britain, and the Loyalists from New England and the South-

all these for the first time made common cause. To the French-

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68        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

Canadian, who cared nothing about the cry, "free trade and

sailors' rights," the American appeared as an invader, the

despoiler of his home, the enemy of his people, and under De

Salaberry, at the Battle of Chateauguay, the French-Canadian

militiamen, fighting under the British flag, defeated the most

extensive strategic movement of the whole war. From the St.

Lawrence to the St. Clair the Canadian pioneers were the

Loyalists of 1776. For them the war of 1812 meant a fight for

their new homes against their oldtime enemies. The impact of

that war drove into one camp French-speaking and English-

speaking, and out of that community of sympathies and interests

emerged in due time Canadian nationality.

That war did more. It not only welded together French-

speaking and English-speaking, but it bound all Canada with ties

stronger than steel to the motherland of Britain. Within one

generation Canadians, having defended their country side by side

with British regulars against invasion from without, demanded

from Britain self-government within; and they won not only

representative institutions such as the United States inherited,

but Britain's latest achievement, responsible government as well.

When the scattered Provinces of Canada gathered themselves

together under one responsible Canadian Government there ap-

peared an absolutely new thing in the political achievements of

the world: a new nation that had not severed its historic ties or

sacrificed its historic background. That new nation, loyal to the

old flag, awakened in Britain a new conception of Empire, and

led the way for Newfoundland and Australia and New Zealand

and South Africa into that civilized "imperium" which constitutes

the British Empire of to-day.

Come back now to the war of 1812. Come back to the

battle of Lake Erie. Call up the men whose blood reddened

these waters, and whose valor gave that struggle all it has of

glory. Let them all look up and see what we now behold. Let

the Canadians rise, the men in whose hearts the fires of hate and

fear burned hot. Let them look southward across the lake, far

as the Gulf and wide as from sea to sea. Let them multiply the

eight million Americans of that day into the hundred millions of

to-day, and count every man a friend. Let them see this great

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.          69

 

nation, greatest among the world's Republics, with power to

achieve what it has greatly planned, standing four-square among

the nations, pledged, irretrievably pledged, to the world's free-

dom, good-will and peace.    What a glad surprise for the

Canadians of a hundred years ago!

Let the Americans rise, too. Let them come, officers and

men, from Ohio, from Rhode Island, from Kentucky, who in the

hour of victory, for them the hour of death, saw in vision their

Republic stretch far as the northern sea. Let them look up and

see the boundary line where it was a hundred years ago, but

north of it a new nation, filling half a continent with people of

proud resolve, self-dependent, resolute, free. Let them under-

stand how that through this century of peace there have arisen in

America two English-speaking nations, both sovereign, self-

respecting, unafraid, and each with the other forming that mar-

velous unity of American civilization and standing for its in-

tegrity, prestige and power. What a surprise, what a glad

surprise, to the Americans of a hundred years ago!

Greatest surprise of all to those men from Britain, from

Canada and from the United States, who here greatly fought

and bravely died, were they to see that fights like theirs are now

not only deemed impolitic, but are absolutely impossible between

these nations. That impossibility is not merely a matter of

policy, but is a fundamental principle. That principle is the

rights of nationhood. All responsible statesmen in Britain, in

the United States and in Canada agree in this, that, not for

themselves alone, but for all peoples, the rights of nationality

are sacred and inviolate. Any and every people that desires to

be free, and is fit to be free, ought to be free, and must be free.

Britain learned that principle out of the war of American

independence. The United States and Canada learned it in the

struggle of 1812. In loyalty to that principle Britain withstood

the despotic aggressions of Napoleon, and after him the not less

despotic schemes of the concerted monarchs of Europe against

the rising democracies. When the concert of Europe planned

war against the new Spanish democracy, Canning, the Foreign

Secretary of Britain, asserted that principle in these words:

"Our business is to preserve the peace of the world, and there-

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70        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

fore the independence of the several nations that compose it";

and, again, in these words: "Every nation for itself and God

for us all." When those plans of the autocratic monarchs of

Europe threatened the Spanish colonies in America, Canning

proposed to American Ambassador Rush that Britain and the

United States issue a joint declaration that "while neither power

desired the colonies of Spain for herself, it was impossible to

look with indifference on European intervention in their affairs."

Immediately after that proposal President Monroe, giving voice

to the instinct and true policy of the United States, used these

historic words to Congress: "With the existing colonies or de-

pendencies of any European power we have not interfered, and

shall not interfere. But with the governments who have de-

clared their independence and maintained it . . . we could

not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them,

or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European

power in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly

disposition toward the United States."

That sovereign principle has been the guiding star to the

nations of Britain and America over a troubled sea. It has

changed for Britain the old centralized notion of Empire into

the new idea of a world alliance of free nations, in which loyalty

is not of compulsion, but of love, and the ties, stronger than

selfish bonds, are imperceptible and light as air. It has ranged

the public opinion of Britain on the side of the struggling democ-

racies of the world-of Greece, of Italy, of Belgium, of Hungary,

and even of the nations of the Orient. It civilized the boundary

line between the United States and Canada, and inspires life in

America with a new ideal of internationalism. It determines

the policy of the United States in its relations with the Philip-

pines, with Cuba, with Mexico and the republics of South

America, with Japan of a generation ago and with the awakening

democracy of China to-day.

All this growth of nationhood, this sanctity of national

aspiration, the commonplace among us to-day, had its beginning

when through the smoke of battle Britain and America began

to see eye to eye. The distance that vision has brought these

two nations, the revolution it has wrought, may be measured by

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        71

 

the difference between what happened on Lake Erie in 1813 and

what happened in 1898 on Manila Bay. The significance of the

change is expressed in to-day's celebration. At this place and on

this day our deepest concern is not with the wars of the past,

but with the peace of the future; not with the triumphs or the

defeats of yesterday, but with the responsibilities and obligations

of to-morrow; not with the glory that either nation achieved a

hundred years ago, but with the message which both nations,

speaking in the name of our common North American civiliza-

tion, shall give to the world through the hundred years to come.

That message, spoken by two voices, one from the United

States, the other from Canada, is one message. It is America's

message that on this continent, between two proud peoples, the

barbarism of brute force has long yielded to civilized inter-

nationalism. It is the assurance that Canada's national standing

on this continent binds the British Empire and the American

Republic in one world-spanning English-speaking fraternity.

On all continents and on all seas the power of America is the

combined power of the United States and Canada, plus the power

of Britain and of the British dominions on the South Atlantic

and beyond the Pacific.  These all are bound together, each with

all the others, for the maintenance of that principle of nation-

hood: any people that desires to be free and is fit to be free

ought to be free and must be free. That principle means peace

and freedom in the English-speaking world.

More than that. What this principle of nationhood has

done for America and for the English-speaking fraternity it yet

will do for the world. In the light of America's experience the

international boundary lines of Europe are barbaric. They can-

not long endure. In our own day war has begun to be seen not

merely as cruel, burdensome, brutal, but as too futile and too

foolish for sane and civilized peoples. The nations of civiliza-

tion will yet leave war behind, as civilized men have left behind

the street fight and the duel. As individual citizens have found

the only sure vindication of personal honor and the only true

protection of vital interest to be in respecting the personality and

the personal interests of others and in trusting for justice to the

law of their land, so are the nations learning that the only sure

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72        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

vindication of national honor and the only certain protection of

vital interests is in respecting the nationality of others and in

trusting for justice to the growing conscience of the race codified

in international law and expressing itself through international

arbitration.

On that, as on a sure foundation, rests the hope of the

world's peace. Once men dreamed of peace through the world

sovereignty of some master mind like Alexander or some ruling

race like the Romans. But that dream of peace, the peace not of

free men but of weaklings and slaves, was doomed forever when

Napoleon and his army staggered back through the snows of

Russia under the curse of God.

But a new day has dawned, dawned for the statesmen,

dawned for the nations. It is the day of national rights and

national responsibilities. The two nations of America have seen

the coming of that day, have seen it through these generations

of peace, have seen it and are glad. We of to-day, standing on

this historic boundary line, a boundary no longer of separation,

but of union, are pledged, we and our nations with us, pledged

to preach this gospel of freedom, good-will and peace. This is

America's vision; this America's message; this America's obliga-

tion to all the world.

 

ADDRESS OF HON. WALLING.

Hon. Emory A. Walling, presiding judge of Erie County,

Pa., spoke as follows:

The only excuse that I have for now coming before you is

that my home is in Erie, Pennsylvania, a place so linked with

the great national event, the anniversary of which we are here

celebrating, that as one of her citizens I would be less than an

American if I shrank from the performance of any duty to

which I might be here called by your committee.

The end of the year 1812 found the war going on with

the great territory of Michigan in full possession of the enemy,

who to extend the invasion into Ohio and possibly Pennsylvania,

must have control of Lake Erie and so must we to drive the

enemy out of Michigan and carry the war into Canada. This

lake was the key to the situation. The British saw it and pres-

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.         73   ently had a war fleet upon the lake. We must meet them there. We, too, must have a fleet. There was but one safe place to build it, and that was Presque Isle Bay at Erie, being then and still the finest natural harbor on the great lakes; land locked and protected by the peninsula which extends nearly three miles outward from the main shore line of the lake; and the only entrance to the bay

being then too shallow for the enemy's largest gunboats, and also to some extent protected by fortifications. The guns on the enemy's boats then only had an effective range of about one mile. So our harbor was the place to construct the fleet. Fortunately in that crisis, Captain Daniel Dobbins, the ablest navigator on the lakes, lived at Erie, and he went to Wash- ington and laid before the president and the secretary of the navy the facts with such force that Presque Isle Bay was chosen as the place to build the fleet and he was made sailing

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74        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

master in charge of the work. So when Commodore Perry, who

at his own request had been assigned to duty on this lake, came

to Erie, March 27, 1813, he found that American patriotism had

preceded him and that some of the intended war boats were

already on the stocks. The best protection to a free country is

not great navies nor standing armies, but the courage and patriot-

ism of a loyal people. Nevertheless, even in this twentieth cen-

tury if we wish abiding peace we must be wise enough to desire

it and strong enough to maintain it.

Under the inspiring presence of Perry, that fleet arose as

if by magic. The forests, where is now the heart of our city,

were converted into war ships almost in a night. The songs

of the birds were lost in the crashing of trees felled along the

shore. Men came from far and near to join in the work. House

carpenters became ship carpenters. Even those long days of the

early summer were too short for the work that must be done,

and the music of axe and mallet, of hammer and saw was heard

far into the night.

Supplies and munitions of war were secured at Buffalo,

Pittsburg, Philadelphia and elsewhere.  Even powder was

brought six hundred miles in the Old Dupont Powder Wagon

from Wilmington, Delaware, and much of the way was little

better than an Indian trail.

With boundless enthusiasm Perry was everywhere. And

in three and one-half months from the day he landed in Erie,

an American fleet of nine vessels was floating in our harbor

fully completed and equipped for service. That fleet cost eight

thousand dollars, some of which was advanced by a patriotic

citizen whose descendants still live in our city. That was before

grafters were born.

Then came the most herculean task of all-to get officers

and sailors to man the fleet. Here Perry succeeded by efforts

almost superhuman. Some came as raw volunteers, some from

Commodore Chauncey, some from General Mead, some from

places far away and before the battle some from General Har-

rison. At last the fleet was manned, and early August, the

heavier ships being lightened and floated over the bar, sailed out

to meet the enemy.

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        75

That was a perilous summer. Oft did the enemy's ships

sail by close to our shore. The danger of an attempt to enter

the harbor, or of an attack by a force landed nearby was ever

present. We had there a few soldiers and every citizen was a

minute man ready to respond at the call of the village bell.

Our people stood along the shore to watch the fleet as it

sailed away. Their hearts and prayers went with it. Aye, their

fathers, their brothers, their sons went forth in that fleet to join

with Perry in the struggle for the mastery of the lakes.

But that was not a local campaign. For on those ships

were men from all or nearly all the states, including some col-

ored men, and this is no local celebration. Perry did not belong

to any one state, but to the country, to humanity and to the ages.

And what a broad, splendid spirit our Canadian brothers

show to join with us here today in making this an international

jubilee.

Perry came to Put-in-Bay somewhat because of the harbor

and to be near the land forces of General Harrison, and also

because he was in quest of the enemy, who were then at this

end of the lake. He did not have long to wait, for there was

never a time on sea or land when the Briton was not ready for

a square open fight.

It must have been an inspiring sight, on the morning of

September 10th, when the British with a favorable breeze came

down the lake in battle line, and Perry rising from a sick bed,

went forth to meet the enemy. Well matched in numbers and

equipment, it was Anglo Saxon meeting Anglo Saxon, on equal

terms, in deadly strife. All realized that the day of battle had

come. Our men were served an early dinner. Our decks were

dampened and sprinkled with sand. All knew they would soon

be wet with blood.

The British having longer carrying guns, sought to fight at

a distance. The Americans with shorter, heavier guns, sought

to come to close range. At a quarter of twelve, all the enemy's

bands struck up "Rule Brittania," and the battle was on, our

flagship Lawrence leading the attack. And against it the enemy

concentrated its fire of shot and shell, until it was literally a

floating bloody hulk. On it the carnage was terrible. Of its

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76       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

one hundred and three men not twenty were left able to stand.

Perry with his own hands fired the last shot from her deck.

That was the psychological moment, which changed the history

of North America.

A mile away was the twin ship 'Niagara' yet unscathed.

Then came the strangest sight ever recorded in the annals of

naval warfare. The American commander, still unhurt, though

thought dead, pulled down the pennant which had been given

him by an Erie lady, and on which were the immortal words of

Lawrence, 'Don't give up the ship.' And with a few companions

entered the only row boat still attached to the Lawrence and

headed for the Niagara. Never since Washington crossed the

Delaware had the life of one man been of such controlling im-

portance to the country, and never was a life in greater peril.

The British commander, twice wounded, but still confident

of victory, from the deck of his battered flagship, saw the sig-

nificant move and at once turned the guns of his fleet upon the

little boat as it swiftly cut the waves, and for fifteen minutes it

went literally through a baptism of cannon shot, grape shot,

canister and musket balls. The boat was hit, the oars splintered,

the water dashed in foam around them, but not a man was

touched.

Perry hastily re-arranged his line of battle and amidst

deafening cheers that pennant rose again. At that moment a

fresh breeze came as from Heaven and drove the old Niagara

right through the enemy's lines, and with broadsides to right

and left, midst blinding smoke, shattered the opposing ships, two

of which had become fouled in an effort to resist the onslaught,

so that in less than fifteen minutes every opposing flag went

down. The first and only time that a British squadron ever

surrendered. And from then until now no nation has ever raised

a hostile flag upon the Great Lakes.

Then Perry took his pencil and with his cap as a rest, wrote

that famous message to General Harrison:

"'We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships,

two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.'

The forest fleet had done its work, and shortly the Law-

rence, the Niagara and other ships were returned to Erie. And

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.       77

their commander came back to us in his little boat, the 'Arial,'

and it was the proudest hour in Erie's history when Commodore

Perry sailed back into our harbor with his flag of victory waving

in the bright autumn sky. Do you wonder that the tenth of

September has, for a hundred years, been a great holiday in all

parts of the country?

Do you wonder that this great succession of centennial

events began at Erie where for a week we revelled in gala attire

and had such a celebration as we never knew before? Do you

wonder that the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania reached

down with arms of love and from the bottom of Lake Erie,

where she rested for five and ninety years, lifted up and rebuilt

the old Niagara so that during this glad year hundreds of

thousands might reverently tread upon her deck as upon con-

secrated ground?

Do you wonder that as Pennsylvanians we come here in-

spired by what our ancestors have done, and eager to join with

you in an eternal pledge of fidelity to the future, so 'that these

dead shall not have died in vain?'

After the battle, General Harrison marched forward, drove

the enemy back to Canada, destroyed its Indian allies, regained

possession of all that had been lost, and again the banner of the

stars was raised over the Great American Northwest, where it

has floated in peace for a hundred years. In fact, Harrison's

campaign was so brilliant as to make him a popular idol and

twenty-seven years later, the slogan of 'Tippecanoe and Tyler

too' swept the country, and in our greatest political campaign,

landed the old general in the White House.

That war showed the world, what it did not know before,

that Americans could fight upon the water. After what Perry

did on Lake Erie, what McDonough did on Lake Champlain,

what Decatur, Hull, Bainbridge, Lawrence and others did upon

the sea, it took no black lettered treaty to defend the rights of

our sailors. And, sir, for a hundred years the best protection

any American has had is the flag of his country.

Considering what he had to do with, what he had to con-

tend against and what he accomplished, Commodore Perry's

victory is not surpassed in the annals of modern warfare. But

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78        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

he was also great as a man. And, my friends, the century of

peace must be the highest feeling in all our hearts, and it is

fitting that it be here celebrated. For it began just a hundred

years ago this afternoon out yonder on the battered and bloody

hulk of the old Lawrence when Commodore Perry accepted the

surrender of the British officers with such genuine kindness as

to make them forget the bitterness of defeat. It began when

he secured a parole for Commodore Barclay and returned the

crippled and wounded hero to home and country. It began right

here on this island when, after the battle, the Britons and Amer-

icans mingled their tears together at the common open graves

of their dead, who here were buried side by side.

Let us hope that such peace between the two great English

speaking nations will forever remain unbroken, and that it may

tend to lead all other nations up to that final era of peace on

earth and good will to men. Such era will dawn when all men

the world around can look into one another's faces and know

and feel that they are brothers.

Other addresses were made by Governor R. B. Burchard of

Rhode Island and Rev. A. J. Carey of Chicago.

 

 

The exercises on Put-in-Bay were followed by a banquet

at the Hotel Breakers on Cedar Point, Sandusky.     This

banquet was announced as "in connection with the national and

inter-state observance of the one hundredth anniversary of the

battle of Lake Erie and of General William Henry Harrison's

northwestern campaign in the War of 1812 and to commemorate

the century of peace between English speaking peoples which

will conclude December 24, 1914.

Toastmaster Clarke introduced the exercises by reading the

following communication from President Wilson:

"It is a matter of deep regret with me that my duties here

render it impossible for me to be present and share in the notable

celebration of the victory at Put-in-Bay. I am kept away by

the thought that no man can truly praise those who did their

duty by neglecting his own.

"I need not attempt to characterize the great service of the

"I need not attempt to characterize the great service of the

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The Centennial of Perry's Victory.        79

 

men who won that notable victory. That I am sure, will be done

better than I could do it by yourself and the others who will

speak at the celebration; but I crave the pleasure of adding my

tribute of unqualified admiration of the men who with so little

did so much and crowned a difficult enterprise with singular

glory."

Among those present at the banquet were Mr. W. B. Shelby,

a great-grandson of Governor Shelby, Harrison's chief lieutenant

in the campaign of 1812. Mr. Shelby had with him a field glass

taken by Commodore Perry after his victory and presented to

the Governor. Mr. Charles Henry Todd, M. D., son of Charles

Scott Todd, Harrison's gallant aide de camp, was also present.

On the morning of September 11th, the Steamer Olcutt

conveyed the guests of the Inter-State Board to Put-in-Bay for

the exercises in connection with the removal from their present

graves of the bones of the American and British officers, killed

in the battle of Lake Erie, to the crypt of the Perry Memorial,

where they were re-interred with international honors.

The religious ceremonies were conducted jointly by the

Right Reverend James DeWolf Perry, Jr., Bishop of Rhode

Island, and the Venerable Arch-Deacon H. J. Cody, D.D., LL.D.,

rector of St. Paul's Church, Toronto, Canada, in token of the

historical fact that clerical representatives of both nations joined

in the original burial at Put-in-Bay one hundred years ago.

The funeral cortege was escorted by Colonel Harry Cutler,

of Rhode Island, Chief Marshal, with a staff composed of the

leading naval and military representatives of the participating

states; a provisional battalion of United States infantry, Cap-

tain H. G. Smith, commanding; Third Division Coast Artillery,

Rhode Island National Guard; Third Division Rhode Island

Naval Battalion; officers and men from the U. S. ships Essex,

Don Juan de Austria, Wolverine, Hawk and Dorothea; the New-

port Artillery Company, Rhode Island Militia; and the First

Light Infantry Regiment, Rhode Island Militia. During these

ceremonies minute guns were sounded from the ships in the

harbor and the bells of Put-in-Bay Island were tolled.

Thus ended this most impressive and significant celebration.

But Put-in-Bay was by no means the only place to witness the

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80        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. intense interest taken in the events there celebrated. Before the celebration the flag ship Niagara had been taken to the principal cities in the upper lakes, where it was inspected by many thou- sand loyal citizens; while after the celebration it was conducted with great pomp and ceremony to Cleveland, where its history and the events connected with it were made the occasion of a week's festivities and rejoicings.

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