The Battle of Lake Erie - September 10, 1813

Greetings everyone and welcome to Mighty Line Minute. Every year we gather at Thanksgiving to count our blessings: Family, Freedom and Abundance. Living here in the Western Reserve, there's something deeper about a 26-year-old Navy commander, nine hastily built ships, and a single decisive morning on Lake Erie in 1813.

Without Admiral Perry's victory, America's map would look very different.

In early 1813, our young republic was losing the war of 1812. The British commanded Lake Erie. Fort Meigs on Ohio's northwest shores was starving and falling back. Detroit had fallen.

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, half of Minnesota would be taken.

Admiral Perry was dispatched to a new fleet on Lake Erie. Noah Brown, a master ship builder from New York, worked with him in Erie to construct nine vessels that would soon turn into warships: the Lawrence, the Niagara, and seven smaller ones.

On September 10th, 1813, Perry's Ships with 54 guns met Captain Barclay's six ships with 63 guns near Put-in-Bay. The fight was savage. The Lawrence was shot to pieces. 

Four of every five men were killed or wounded. With his flagship dying. Perry took his battle flag, "Don't Give Up The Ship," lowered into a small boat, rode through half a mile of cannon fire to the Niagara. There he broke the British line, shot broadsides into their ships, and forced all of them to surrender. On an envelope he wrote — "We have met the enemy and they are ours." Payoff was instant.

General Harrison retook Detroit, chased the British into Canada and crushed them at the Thames. Tecumseh fell and the native confederacy was shattered.

The entire old Northwest thus remained American.

Together, Perry and Harrison—later, the shortest living president—were known as saving the Midwest. The Western Reserve— Connecticut's slice of Northeast Ohio— remained American, too.

New England settlers brought town squares public schools and abolitionist fire that shaped the region forever. Northern Ohio Cities: Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, and farms well beyond the reserve, all still reflect those roots because of that day, 212 years ago.

The fertile soil that feeds us, the water we drink, the ground beneath us, could have been flying the Union Jack. Perry never chased fame. He died young in 1819, but gave a frightened nation something priceless: proof that ordinary Americans— carpenters, tradesmen, sailors, frontiersmen, and their families— could beat the world's mightiest empire.

In 1813, Washington burned, and New England considered secession.

Yet on one lake, ordinary citizens stood, fought and triumphed.

This thanksgiving, as we carve the turkey, let's raise a glass to the young captain who refused to surrender the ship, and to those who followed him.

But let's also remember those who suffered and lost their way of life, including our Native Americans, and the national turmoil that existed. Amidst the chaos, ordinary men stood firm on Lake Erie and made the impossible happen.

Happy Thanksgiving!