Description:

Perry Oliver

Men's walking stick salvaged from the U.S.S. Lawrence, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship at the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie. Silver cap, collar, and ferrule with oak shaft. The pommel top is engraved "G.B. to F.W.G.", while three short inscriptions are engraved horizontally along the side: "We have met the enemy and they are ours"; "Wood of the Flag Ship Lawrence"; and "Perry's Victory Lake Erie Sept. 10th 1813". In very good condition, with expected wear including isolated minor wood splitting towards base. The collar is a tad loose. Measures approximately 33.25" long from top to tip.

The U.S.S. Lawrence was one of two 493-ton brigs built by the shipbuilding firm of upstate New York brothers Adam and Noah Brown. Active between 1804 and 1833, the Brown brothers maintained a permanent dockside workshop in lower Manhattan, although they also built ships onsite in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New York. The U.S.S. Lawrence and her sister Niagara were constructed at Erie, Pennsylvania. The Browns also built numerous other gunboats, corvettes, schooners, and privateers for the war effort.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) commanded American naval forces from his flagship U.S.S. Lawrence at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813. Perry's forces drew heavy fire from the British, and he was forced to temporarily abandon Lawrence to resume command from another vessel, but the Americans won the day. One of the engravings on our walking stick paraphrases Perry's famous message to General William Henry Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." The "Hero of Lake Erie" had secured a dual defensive and offensive victory for the Americans; the Ohio River Valley was now protected from future British attacks, and American forces were well-poised to wrest control of the Great Lakes from the British and even invade Canada.

Oliver Hazard Perry joined the U.S. Navy as a teenage midshipman and served in the Caribbean and Mediterranean during the Napoleonic era. Perry's participation at the Battle of Lake Erie earned him a gold Congressional Gold Medal and universal popular acclaim. Perry accepted a diplomatic mission to Venezuela to avoid scandal between himself and his Battle of Lake Erie subordinate Jesse Elliot. He died at age 34 of yellow fever off of Trinidad.

The U.S.S. Lawrence was scuttled in mid-1815 for preservation, and raised sixty years later. Her hull was transported piecemeal to Philadelphia for display at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, where it later burned. It is unknown when the wood for our walking stick was harvested.

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