Famous Rhode Islanders

Oliver Hazard Perry

Oliver Hazard Perry was born on Aug. 20, 1785, in South Kingston, Rhode Island.  He had four brothers and three sisters. Oliver and his brothers followed in the footsteps of their father, Christopher Raymond Perry, who was a naval officer. After schooling at South Kingston and Newport, Rhode Island, young Oliver was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1799. He joined his father's ship, the General Greene.

In the following years Perry fought in the naval war against France and against the Barbary pirates. He was made an acting lieutenant in 1803 and a permanent lieutenant in 1807. By 1811 he was commanding a gunboat flotilla from his headquarters at Newport. That year he married Elizabeth Champlin Mason. They had five children.

As war with Britain approached, Perry asked for active duty. He was placed in command of naval operations on Lake Erie. In May 1813 he began to build and train his fleet at Presque Isle, near Erie, Pa. Perry took command of the brig Lawrence. In August the fleet sailed up the lake to meet the British.

The rival fleets met on Sept. 10, 1813. The battle began just before noon with Perry sailing directly into the British. The Lawrence was shot to pieces. Perry had to abandon ship and take command of its sister brig, the Niagara.  By 3 PM the British were defeated.

The Battle of Lake Erie made Perry an instant hero. For the remainder of the war Perry worked closely with General Harrison, participating in the recovery of Detroit and in the battle of the Thames. From 1814 to 1817 he commanded the Java in the Mediterranean. Perry was sent on a diplomatic mission to Venezuela in 1819, and on the return voyage he died of yellow fever.

In 1865, artist William H. Powell illustrated Perry's victory in a painting which now hangs in Ohio's state capitol. Eight years later, he created this larger version in a temporary studio in the U.S. Capitol. The painting depicts the moment when Commodore Perry and a small contingent, in a daring move, rowed a half-mile through heavy gunfire to another American ship, the U.S.S. Niagara.  Boarding and taking command, he brought the Niagara into battle and soundly defeated the British fleet. Perry summarized the fight in a now-famous message to General William Henry Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours."  In the painting, Powell used actual sailors as models for the unknown oarsmen, and noted the diversity of Perry's crew by including an African-American, seated toward the right.

A memorial column on Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island, Ohio, was dedicated in 1913. In 1936 the site became a national monument (see National Parks).