Oliver Hazard Perry

Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the Battle of Lake Erie, was born on August 23, 1785, in South Kingston, Rhode Island, and died on August 23, 1819, at Port of Spain, Trinidad. He was honored on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth with a statue based on an original sculpted by Captain William Green Turner in Florence, Italy, in 1884. The figure portrays Perry at the decisive moment in the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, after he had gained the deck of the Niagara, before recovering his knocked-off cap, as he gave orders to bear down on the enemy's line, orders that infused new enthusiasm into the American crews. The tribute also honors the Pennsylvanians who built and served aboard Perry's Erie-based ships in that decisive battle. Perry's famous battle flag, reading "Don't Give Up The Ship," carried the dying words of his friend Captain James Lawrence of the frigate Chesapeake and was made by a group of Erie women led by Margaret Forster Stewart in her East 4th Street home.

Erie, Pennsylvania · United States