Oliver Hazard Perry

On August 23, 1785, in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, Oliver Hazard Perry was born into a naval family headed by Captain Christopher Perry. He went to sea young, entered the United States Navy as a midshipman, and gained early experience during the Quasi-War with France and the First Barbary War. Those formative postings gave him professional training at a moment when the republic was still inventing its navy.

In the War of 1812, Perry took command on Lake Erie and built a squadron at Presque Isle under difficult logistical conditions. His victory at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, opened the way for William Henry Harrison's advance and the American success at the Battle of the Thames. The dispatch announcing that triumph, with its line "We have met the enemy and they are ours," quickly became one of the war's most famous statements.

Perry's success helped secure the Old Northwest and strengthened the place of naval institutions in national defense planning. Lake Erie also entered public memory as one of the key events behind the Treaty of Ghent and the broader claim that the War of 1812 had preserved American sovereignty.