Perry's Shipyards
Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Perry's ships, the Lawrence, the Niagara, and the Ariel, were built in spring, 1813, at the foot of this street. His warehouses, blockhouse, and lookout station were also located there.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the spring of 1813, with the War of 1812 raging on the Great Lakes, American shipwrights raced to build a fleet at the foot of this street in Erie. The vessels launched here — among them the Lawrence, the Niagara, and the Ariel — carried Oliver Hazard Perry to his famous victory at the Battle of Lake Erie that September. Warehouses, a blockhouse, and a lookout once clustered along this shore to guard and supply the yard.
Why it matters
The ships built here won control of Lake Erie, a turning point that secured the American Northwest during the War of 1812.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the spring of 1813 the United States was locked in the War of 1812, a hard and uncertain struggle against Great Britain that spilled across the Great Lakes as much as the Atlantic. Control of these inland waters meant control of supply lines, frontier settlements, and the fate of the young nation's northwestern reaches.
Erie, on the Pennsylvania shore of the lake that bears the same name, became an unlikely wartime boomtown. Its sheltered harbor and stands of timber made it a place where a fleet could be conjured almost from scratch — if the men and materials could be gathered in time.
The marker fixes that furious effort to the foot of this very street, where a working shipyard rose in a matter of months. It was here, on the edge of the water, that the raw wood of the surrounding forest was turned into vessels of war.
People & events
The story here belongs to the shipwrights and to Oliver Hazard Perry, the young naval officer sent to build and command an American squadron on Lake Erie. In the spring of 1813 the vessels named on the marker — the Lawrence, the Niagara, and the Ariel — took shape at the foot of this street.
Around the yard clustered the ordinary machinery of a war effort: warehouses to hold supplies, a blockhouse for defense, and a lookout station to watch the lake for the enemy. Building a fleet on an exposed frontier shore was as much a feat of logistics and nerve as of carpentry.
That autumn, the ships built here carried Perry into the Battle of Lake Erie, where the American squadron won a decisive victory. The fleet assembled on this shoreline in a few frantic months went on to change the course of the war on the lakes.
Its place in the American story
The Battle of Lake Erie in 1813 was one of the turning points of the War of 1812, and the ships that won it were born here. By seizing control of the lake, American forces secured a vital frontier and reshaped the balance of the war in the northwest.
Control of Lake Erie meant control of the supply routes and the surrounding country, and it opened the way for further American operations in the region. A victory won on the water rippled far inland, helping to secure the nation's hold on the Old Northwest.
That so much hinged on a shipyard hastily built at the foot of an ordinary street is a striking reminder of how local effort can carry national weight. The determination poured into this small harbor helped decide the fate of a war.
If you visit
Come to the waterfront and look toward the lake, and try to picture the noise and urgency of a shipyard racing against a war — the hammering, the smell of fresh-cut timber, the hulls rising where now there is only shoreline.
The marker anchors that vanished scene to solid ground: the foot of this street, where the ways once ran down to the water and the warehouses, blockhouse, and lookout stood guard. Little of that world is visible now, which is exactly why the marker matters.
If you're exploring Erie's lakefront, let this be the spot where you connect the calm modern harbor to its dramatic wartime past. Stand a while, watch the water Perry's fleet once sailed, and the ordinary shore takes on the weight of the history made here.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Oliver Hazard Perry
Related events
- · Battle of Lake Erie, 1813
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
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.
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.
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.