liver Hazard Perry (1785-1819), American naval officer, born on Aug. 23, 1785, at South Kingston, R. I. He served in the Tripolitan War, first on the frigate Adams (1802-3) and afterwards, as a lieutenant, on the Constellation (1804-5); and in 1807-10 he commanded a flotilla of seventeen gunboats on the Newport Station. Soon after the outbreak of the War of 1812 he was again placed in command of a flotilla of gunboats and in March, 1813, having been raised to the rank of captain, he was made master-commandant, and was ordered to superintend, under the direction of Com. Chauncy, the constructing and equipping of a fleet for service on Lake Erie. The squadron was ready for service by July 10 but the lack of men long kept Perry in the harbor and he did not set sail from Erie until Aug. 12.

On Sept. 10, in the famous battle of Lake Erie, fought off Put-in-Bay, he defeated the inferior British squadron under Capt. Robert H. Barclay. During this battle Perry displayed seamanship of a high order and great personal bravery. Immediately after the battle Perry sent to Gen. W. H. Harrison the famous message, ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.’ Perry’s victory on Lake Erie aroused the greatest enthusiasm throughout the United States. After the war Perry was again placed in command of the Newport Station, and in 1816-17, as commander of the Java, served under Decatur in the Mediterranean against the Algerine and Tripolitan pirates. In 1819 Perry, in command of several vessels, proceeded to the West Indian waters to protect American commerce, and on his birthday, Aug. 23, died of yellow fever near Trinidad. [The Home University Encyclopedia, 1946]

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