War of 1812 Maritime Mystery Remains Unsolved
As plans for the 1913 centennial celebration of Perry's Victory on Lake Erie got
underway, comments by A. C. Burk of Port Clinton, Ohio, sparked a debate among
pioneer residents. Burk claimed that the vessel that lay partially submerged at the
mouth of Muskellunge Creek was in fact the British gunboat reported abandoned by
General Henry Proctor's forces following the attack on Fort Stephenson in August
1813.
Archibald Purcell, grandson of one of the fort's defenders, knew the Sandusky River
as well as anyone and he was certain that Burk was wrong. Isadore Burgoon agreed
with Purcell, claiming that the mysterious vessel was an old lighter used to transport
grain and lumber to nearby ports. "Besides," Burgoon added, "it was Mud Creek,"
rather than the Muskellunge that the British mistook for the Sandusky River.
Although not the British gunboat, Burgoon was aware of at least one boat, the Black
Hawk, that lay at the mouth of Mud Creek.
C. F. Michael of Port Clinton, who had lived as a boy at the mouth of the
Muskellunge, thought Burk's statements were incorrect as well. He remembered the
hull as a fifty-foot vessel from Sandusky, Ohio, abandoned in the 1830s. Michael
wondered if the rotting hull that lay in the river below the Thede Edwards farm could
in fact be the British gunboat?
Finally, Captain John W. Tyler weighed in on the discussion. There were few who did
not consider Tyler an authority on the early vessels that plied Lake Erie's waters. For
nearly a quarter of a century, he had sailed the river, bay, and lake. Before him, his
father Captain Morris Tyler, a dispatch bearer during the War of 1812, had spent
years transporting grain and lumber to Lake Erie ports.
Tyler identified the vessel at the Musekllunge as the Baltimore. Captain Ben Meeker
had bought her in Sandusky in 1842 and then sailed her up the river as far as the
Muskellunge. There, just outside the river's channel, Tyler claimed, he scuttled and
then stripped the Baltimore of her iron and sails for use on the Elmira Meeker. Tyler
also knew the identity of the boat that lay below the Edwards farm. It was the Red
Dog, a scow used by Tillotson and Heywood to ship grain from Fremont to Erie
County ports. Another old sailor, A. R. Walters, who had spent much time aboard
the Ben Flint, substantiated Tyler's statements.
While the old mariners identified the vessel at the Muskellunge and locations of the
Black Hawk and the Red Dog to everyone's satisfaction, they could not deny the
possibility that the British gunboat still lay undetected beneath the waters of the
Sandusky.