Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Allen C. Browne
Taken: February 16, 2015
Caption: Oliver Hazard Perry 1785–1819
Additional Description: “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” came the terse report from twenty-eight-year-old Oliver Hazard Perry after the first major naval victory of the War of 1812. The American navy, with Perry in command of the flagship Lawrence, had met the mighty British Squadron at Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, winning control of the lake and paving the way for General William Henry Harrison to move ahead to victory on land.

Perry had been assigned the task of building a fleet and assembling a crew, which he described as “a motley set, blacks, Soldiers, and boys.” But after the Battle he spoke “highly of the bravery and good conduct of the negroes, who formed a considerable part of his crew. They seemed to be absolutely insensible to danger.” — National Portrait Gallery label
This 1855 painting by Martin J. Heade (after John Wesley Jarvis) hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC
Submitted: March 15, 2015, by Allen C. Browne of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Database Locator Identification Number: p302765
File Size: 2.153 Megabytes

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