Friends Good Will: The Sloop Captured by the British

The tall ship moored in South Haven is a working replica of a merchant sloop built around eighteen ten with an eventful past. The original Friends Good Will carried cargo on the Great Lakes until the summer of eighteen twelve, when it was chartered by the federal government to deliver military supplies to Fort Dearborn, the small garrison at what is now Chicago. On the return voyage the British, who had just seized Mackinac Island, lured the sloop into the harbor by flying false colors above the fort.

They confiscated the ship, renamed her Little Belt, armed her, and put her to work for the Royal Navy. She fought under British colors until September of eighteen thirteen, when Commodore Oliver Perry recaptured her at the Battle of Lake Erie. The replica built in two thousand four now sails from South Haven and serves as a floating classroom for Great Lakes maritime history.