Presque Isle: Where Perry Won the Lake

The curved sand peninsula jutting into Lake Erie just west of Erie, Pennsylvania, looks peaceful today, a sprawling state park popular with swimmers and birdwatchers. But in the spring of eighteen thirteen, it was a naval construction yard that would determine the outcome of the War of eighteen twelve in the Great Lakes.

Preque Isle means almost an island in French, and the name describes the geography exactly: a sandy arm that nearly closes off a bay, creating one of the finest natural harbors on the Great Lakes. That harbor was why Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry chose it as his base. Congress had assigned Perry the nearly impossible task of building a naval squadron from scratch in the wilderness and then using it to defeat the British fleet that controlled Lake Erie.

Through the spring and summer of eighteen thirteen, Perry's crews felled trees, built a sawmill, and hammered together warships on the beach inside the sheltered bay. The British commander, Admiral Barclay, tried to blockade the entrance, but the shallow sandbar kept his ships out and he gave up the blockade. Six of the nine vessels in Perry's squadron were built right here.

On September tenth, eighteen thirteen, Perry's fleet met Barclay's in open water. When Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was nearly destroyed, he rowed through fire to transfer his flag to the brig Niagara and re-engaged. The British surrendered. Perry sent his famous dispatch to General William Henry Harrison: We have met the enemy and they are ours.

The victory secured American control of Lake Erie, forced the British to abandon Detroit, and opened the way for the campaign that killed Tecumseh and broke the Western Confederacy. Today Presque Isle is Pennsylvania's most-visited state park, drawing more than four million visitors a year.