Put-In-Bay:: The Construction of Perry's Monument

By Jeff Kissell

"We have met the enemy and they are ours. . . ." So wrote Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to General William Henry Harrison following his decisive victory over a British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie. Perry's victory served as a catalyst both for this battle and for ending hostilities in the Old Northwest Theater of the War of 1812. Captured here in over 200 vintage images from the Monument archives, is a pictorial and technical record of how a monument befitting this naval victory and the resulting peace became a reality.During the remainder of his life, the country heralded Perry as a national hero whose bravery and fortitude enabled the U.S. to win, or gain an honorable peace from, its war with England. A deserving result of this victory was creation of a monument to honor Perry and his men. The story of the construction of the monument is as thrilling as the bravery that inspired it-seen here are the original photographs taken by prominent Put-in-Bay photographer G. Otto Herbster, capturing the builders, architects, mishaps, and triumphs that occurred during the construction of one of Ohio's most revered treasures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439630020

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BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE

"We have met the enemy and they are ours...." So wrote Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to General William Henry Harrison following his decisive victory over a British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie. On September 10, 1813, Perry’s squadron of nine vessels defeated and captured an English fleet of six vessels. The victory not only secured control of the best means of transportation into the expanding frontier, but served as a turning point in the War of 1812.

After the battle, American control of Lake Erie enabled unhindered troop movement to Canada, where General William Henry Harrison defeated a combined British, Canadian, and Native American force at the Battle of the Thames. Perry’s victory served as a catalyst both for this battle and for ending hostilities in the Old Northwest Theater of the War of 1812.

During the remainder of his life, the country heralded Perry as a national hero whose bravery and fortitude enabled the United States to win, or gain an honorable peace from, its war with England. A deserving result of this victory was creation of a monument to honor Perry and his men. This book presents a pictorial and technical record of how a monument befitting this naval victory and the resulting peace became a reality.

ISLAND HISTORY

The earliest known inhabitants of South Bass Island (Put-in-Bay) were the indigenous peoples. They were known to island hop in order to canoe across Lake Erie. These Native Americans were also known to visit the island in the winter when ice conditions allowed crossing the lake to hunt raccoons.

There were some unidentified travelers who came to the island in July 1789. Charts were made of the island naming it Pudding Bay because of the shape of the harbor (of Put-in-Bay) resembling a pudding bag. It has also been recorded that the bottom of the harbor was soft like pudding, unlike the hard bottom of the rest of Lake Erie. British vessels of 1789 have notes referring to the harbor as Puden Bay.

The earliest known white inhabitants of the island were French. In 1807, the Connecticut Land Company was formed in order to sell land in this area, known as the Western Reserve. In that same year, Pierepont Edwards acquired South Bass Island as part of an attempt to equalize the territory allotment he purchased, which was on an indented shoreline and not on a straight rectangle like other townships. An agent for Edwards, Mr. Suth Done came to the island and drove off the French squatters. After having brought laborers to the island to clear over 100 acres of land, he planted wheat and brought sheep and hogs to the island. After raising a spring wheat crop, his workers were busy threshing grain in the fall of 1812, when British soldiers drove them off the island and destroyed the crop. The following year, the British troops abandoned the island and in 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry made Put-in-Bay his base of operations.

MOVEMENT TOWARD A NEW MONUMENT

Homage to Perry’s Victory at the Battle of Lake Erie demanded a monument of proportional size and significance. A lack of widespread concerted effort hindered its completion, although a few river mouth settlements on Lake Erie’s shoreline raised modest statues honoring Perry. These settlements ultimately joined their state and national governments to erect, on South Bass Island, a monument more befitting to memorialize the battle. Prior to the Civil War, a variety of designs and locations including Middle Bass, South Bass, and Gibraltar Islands were proposed for building a monument honoring Perry. Each of these islands had something special, scenically and geographically, to offer as a site for a Perry monument.

Various landholders on Middle Bass offered tracts of land for a monument, particularly after 1900, when it appeared feasible on the island. Gibraltar Island, located in Put-in-Bay harbor and said to have figured importantly in pre-battle activities as Perry’s lookout point for British ships, was considered. Civil War financier Jay Cooke, who later owned this island, dedicated himself to assisting in the creation of a monument to Perry. South Bass Island was the scene of an act that tipped the scale in its favor. Six officers killed in the battle from both navies were laid to rest on September 11, 1813, in a common grave on South Bass Island.

The first organized movement toward a monument began in 1852, which marked the approach of the 40th anniversary of the battle. On June 28, the Sandusky Register proposed the