Ohio History Journal

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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