Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Telescope, v. 13, n. 2 (February 1964), p. 34

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February 34 Telescope regained their spirits and good mittees in general, humor. The astonished appearance of the committee of arrangements, as The run home was made in four they stood on the distant hill and hours and a half, the boat arriving saw the boats file out one by one, at the dock at nine o'clock, and leaving them in the wilderness, discharging its freight in good added materially to the cultivation order. Everything passed off pleas- of good humor. They ran and jumped antly, and the occasion will be long and shouted and hallooed, but nobody remembered as the most successful of paid any attention to them, and they our time. Many returns of such were left alongside their monument, social gatherings will be ardently a memorial of the efficiency of com- hoped for. 1864 When the fiftieth anniversary of Perry's victory did come around, the nation was exhaustively engaged in civil war, and had little time or energy to honor wars of other years. About a year later, however, Put-in-Bay once again came close to the real shooting war in a skirmish that took place 100 years ago this September. Below are the Detroit Free Press accounts of this episode, telling not so much the coherent story of piracy on Lake Erie, but rather its effect on wartime hysteria. This was directed not only toward the Confederate states, but also toward Canada which represented soil of England which had earned U. S. enmity in its veiled support for the Confederate cause. On their part, the Canadians distrusted the United States for its past public enthusiasm for northward expansion, sentiments which probably were not yet dead. Thus we see in retrospect how a minor incident became potentially magnified in inflamed wartime feelings. THE DETROIT FREE PRESS, Wednesday, September 21, 1864 THE PIRACY ON LAKE ERIE. One of the most reckless deeds of this war was perpetrated on the evening of the nineteenth instant. A party of men, on the morning of that day, took passage on the Philo Parsons, a passenger steamer plying between this city and Sandusky, Ohio, touching at Kelly's Island (sic), Lake Erie. The boat was in charge of the first mate, Mr. D. C. McNichols, the captain, S. F. Atwood, being temporarily absent on account of illness of his family. Soon after the boat left Kelly's Island she was seized by the marauders, who proclaimed themselves rebels under command of Capt. Bell (sic), who compelled the officers, crew and passengers to descend to the hold. At Middle Bass Island these officers seized the small steamer Island Queen, which plies as a passenger boat between Sandusky and Kelly's Island, and after landing her passengers and despoiling the boat of everything valuable, scuttled and sank her in Lake Erie. The Parsons then proceeded until within sight of Sandusky, when suddenly it changed its course and made for Detroit River, where it arrived about daylight, on the morning of the 20th instant, leaving the mate and crew of the Parsons (except the engineer, fireman and wheelsman) on Fighting Island, a small island in Detroit River, about half way from

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