Girish Mahajan (Editor)

USS Lady Prevost (1812)

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Name
  
HMS Lady Prevost

Name
  
USS Lady Prevost

Launched
  
13 July 1812

Weight
  
233.7 tons

Completed
  
1810

Acquired
  
11 September 1813

Length
  
25 m

Displacement
  
208,700 kg

Captured
  
Surrendered to US forces 11 September 1813

Fate
  
Sold at auction in 1815

Builder
  
Amherstburg Royal Naval Dockyard

USS Lady Prevost was a schooner captured from the British during the War of 1812 and pressed into use in the United States Navy.

Contents

Built in 1810 as Lady Prevost at Canadian Provisional Marine in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada, she was a 13-gun ship named for the wife of General Sir George Prevost, Commander-in-Chief of the British armies along the Canadian-New York border in the War of 1812. She operated out of Navy Island Royal Naval Shipyard.

British service

The British schooner served as a training ship for Canadian seamen on Lake Erie through 1812, in preparation for a campaign to gain control of the Great Lakes and a subsequent invasion of the United States. Under command of Lieutenant James Buchan, RN, she was one of Captain James Barclay’s squadron which engaged the American squadron under Captain Oliver Hazard Perry off Put-in-Bay in the Battle of Lake Erie on 11 September 1813. In a gun duel first with schooners Somers, Tigress, Porcupine, and sloop Trippe, and then, as the tide of battle turned, with Perry’s flagship Niagara, Lady Prevost suffered damage to her masts and superstructure and, with the rest of her squadron, surrendered.

American service

Taken prize at the surrender, the schooner was repaired and joined the American squadron on Lake Erie as USS Lady Prevost. In company with Niagara, Scorpion, and Trippe under command of Captain Jesse D. Elliott, she sailed into Lake Sinclair on 29 September to cut the supply lines of the British Army attempting to invade western New York.

For the remainder of the War of 1812, the squadron operated on Lakes Erie and Huron, cooperating with the Army commanded by General William Henry Harrison. Lady Prevost was primarily engaged in supporting American troops fighting the British and their Indian allies in the northwest.

Disposition

Following the end of the war in 1815, Lady Prevost was burned and sunk by the Americans at Erie, Pennsylvania, but was raised later that year and converted into a merchantman. She was sold at public auction late in 1815.

References

USS Lady Prevost (1812) Wikipedia