Making of the Flag "Don't Give Up the Ship"
Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Steadfast in the face of war in the summer of 1813, seven brave Erie women stitched the flag that Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry carried into battle. British ships were on Lake Erie poised for attack. Although many fled south, Margaret Forster Steuart, her sister Dorcas, and five nieces remained to complete this rallying banner. The flag is preserved at the US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Md., and its words have become a Navy motto.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the summer of 1813, with British warships massing on Lake Erie, seven Erie women stayed behind while others fled south and stitched the battle flag Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry would fly at the Battle of Lake Erie. Led by Margaret Forster Steuart and her sister Dorcas, the seamstresses emblazoned it with the dying words of Perry's friend James Lawrence: "Don't Give Up the Ship." The banner survives at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, and its motto endures across the Navy.
Why it matters
The flag ties women's home-front labor to one of America's decisive War of 1812 victories, giving the young Navy a rallying cry that still echoes today.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the summer of 1813, the young United States was locked in the War of 1812, a hard and uncertain struggle against Great Britain. Nowhere were the stakes clearer than on the Great Lakes, whose control could decide the fate of the northern frontier. Command of Lake Erie meant command of a vital waterway, and both sides raced to build and man fleets to seize it.
Erie, Pennsylvania, sat on the front line of that contest. It was a shipbuilding town where an American squadron was being readied for battle, and the threat was immediate and real: British ships were on the lake, poised to attack. For the townspeople, the war was not distant news but a danger at the water's edge.
As the peril grew, many residents chose to flee south to safety. But some stayed — and in the choice to remain lies the human heart of this marker's story, set against a backdrop of impending battle.
People & events
The marker honors seven Erie women who, steadfast in the face of war, stitched the flag that Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry would carry into battle. While others left, Margaret Forster Steuart, her sister Dorcas, and five nieces stayed behind to finish the work — a rallying banner for the fleet.
That flag bore words that had already passed into legend among American sailors: "Don't Give Up the Ship." Perry flew this battle flag at the Battle of Lake Erie, turning a phrase of defiance into a signal seen across the fighting line. What the women sewed was not decoration but a message meant to steel men in combat.
The banner survived the battle and survives still, preserved at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. Its words, the marker notes, have become a Navy motto — meaning the handiwork of seven women in a threatened lakeside town still speaks, two centuries on.
Its place in the American story
The Battle of Lake Erie was one of the decisive American victories of the War of 1812, and this flag is woven directly into that triumph. It ties the labor of the home front — needle, thread, and nerve — to a fight that helped secure the northern frontier for the United States.
The story also restores women to a chapter usually told through captains and cannon. The men who fought did so beneath a banner made by women who refused to flee, a reminder that a nation's defense has always drawn on far more people than those who carry the guns.
And the motto endures. "Don't Give Up the Ship" outlived the battle to become a lasting rallying cry in the Navy, so that a phrase stitched in wartime Erie still echoes wherever American sailors invoke it — an unusually direct line from one town's courage to a national tradition.
If you visit
The marker in Erie stands near the lakefront that shaped this story, and the setting does much of the work. Look out toward the water and imagine British sails on the horizon and a town deciding whether to stay or run — the geography makes the drama immediate.
Erie embraces its War of 1812 and naval heritage, so this marker pairs naturally with the city's broader waterfront history for anyone drawn to the age of sail. Reading the marker with the lake in view links the flag directly to the battle it flew over.
Remember that the flag itself now rests far away, at the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis. That separation is part of the pleasure of the visit: you stand where it was made and defended, knowing the banner still survives elsewhere — a thread connecting a Pennsylvania shore to a place of honor in the Navy's memory.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Oliver Hazard Perry
- · Margaret Forster Steuart
Related events
- · Battle of Lake Erie
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
African American Sailors in the Battle of Lake Erie
Erie, PA · est. 1996
When Oliver Hazard Perry's squadron met and captured a British fleet on Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, African American sailors were among the skilled seamen who made the victory possible. Their labor and seamanship were critical to one of the young United States' most decisive naval triumphs in the War of 1812. This marker at Erie, where much of that fleet was built and based, restores their names to the record of that day.
Flagship Niagara
Erie, PA · est. 1948
During the War of 1812, control of Lake Erie was decisive for the fate of the American Northwest. On September 10, 1813, Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led a hastily built American squadron against the British fleet; when his first flagship, the Lawrence, was shot to pieces, Perry famously transferred to the Niagara and pressed the fight to victory. His terse report—"We have met the enemy and they are ours"—became one of the young republic's most quoted lines.
Captain Daniel Dobbins
Erie, PA · est. 2003
A merchant mariner turned naval officer, Daniel Dobbins carried the alarming news of the fall of Forts Mackinac and Detroit to Washington in the opening months of the War of 1812. Commissioned a sailing master, he returned to Erie to oversee the building of the very squadron that Oliver Hazard Perry would command to victory in the Battle of Lake Erie. Dobbins spent three decades in the Navy and Revenue Cutter Service.
Erie County
Erie, PA · est. 1981
Erie County was carved from Allegheny County on March 12, 1800, taking its name from Lake Erie and, through it, from the Erie Indians who once lived along its shores. The county seat, laid out in 1795, grew into a bustling Great Lakes port and became a city in 1851. During the War of 1812, ships of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet were built here before winning the decisive 1813 Battle of Lake Erie.