Hamilton / Diana

In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 8, 1813, HAMILTON and her fellow schooner, SCOURGE, were hove to with 11 other ships of Commodore Isaac Chauncey's American squadron six miles off Port Dalhousie in Lake Ontario. They were awaiting first light to renew action against the British-Canadian squadron of six ships commanded by Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, RN. Around two a.m. a sudden squall blew across the lake and caught both ships beam on, capsizing them and sending them to the bottom, 50 fathoms below along with 53 hands; there were 19 survivors. This was the largest single loss of life on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.

HAMILTON is the former merchant schooner DIANA, out of Oswego, New York. Built in 1809 by the shipwright Henry Eagle for the merchants Matthew McNair and the Hugunin brothers, Peter and Daniel, she was used in the Oswego-Lewiston salt trade, which supplied farmers in western Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, and the Upper Lakes with this essential preservative.

Purchased in fall of 1812 for use in the United States Navy, HAMILTON served during the American attack on Kingston in November, 1812, and the captures of York and Fort George in April and May, 1813. She was armed with eight 18-pounder carronades on slides, and a single centre-mounted 12-pounder long gun. Listed at 76 tons, she is approximately 73 feet long and 20 feet wide.

Discovered in 1973 upright on the lake floor, intact and almost perfectly preserved with all her contents in icy cold water and complete darkness, she, and her fellow schooner SCOURGE, are recognized to be archaeological treasures of international importance.

Title to the schooner was transferred from the United States Navy through the United States Congress and the Royal Ontario Museum to the City of Hamilton, Ontario, in May, 1980. They will be the focus of an international-level museum on a lakeside site set aside for that purpose in Hamilton.