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Commodore Perry... reinterment of his remains...



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December 02, 1826

COLUMBIAN CENTINEL, Boston, Massachusetts, December 2, 1826

* Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry body reinterment
 

A page 2 report says: "The reinterment of the remains of the late Com. Perry will take place on Monday next at Newport....several of the Navy Officers of this station will be present at the solemnities. The pall bearers will be Captains of the Navy. The Rev. Bishop Griswold will officiate the occasion. Business will be suspended for the day"

Other news of the day with many advertisements. Some scattered ink stains & some lite foxing, none in this report, otherwise in nice condition. 4 pages.

wikipedia notes: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (August 20, 1785 – August 23, 1819) was an officer in the United States Navy. He served in the War of 1812 against Britain and earned the title "Hero of Lake Erie" for leading American forces in a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie. The city of Perrysburg, Ohio is named after him.

He was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, a son of Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander and an older brother to Matthew Calbraith Perry. Through his mother, Oliver Perry were descended from national Scotland's hero William Wallace.[1]

Educated in Newport, Rhode Island, Perry was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy on April 7, 1799 and assigned to his father's frigate, General Greene. He first experienced combat on February 9, 1800 off Haiti. During the First Barbary War, he served on the Adams and commanded Nautilus during the capture of Derna.

At his request during the War of 1812, he was given command of U.S. Naval forces on Lake Erie. He supervised the building of a small fleet in what is now Erie County, Ohio. On September 10, 1813 Perry's fleet defended against an attacking British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie. Perry's flagship the Lawrence was destroyed in the encounter and Perry was rowed a half-mile through heavy gunfire to transfer command to the Niagara, carrying his battle flag (reading "DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP", the final words of Captain James Lawrence). Perry's battle report to General William Henry Harrison was famously brief: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."
Perry's battle flag
The final words of Captain Lawrence painted onto the USS Lake Erie, seen here during a 2008 missile launch

His victory opened Canada up to possible invasion, while simultaneously protecting the entire Ohio Valley. It was one of only two significant fleet victories of the war, along with Battle of Plattsburgh.

In 1819, Oliver Hazard Perry died during an expedition to Venezuela's Orinoco River of yellow fever contracted from mosquitos while aboard the Nonsuch. He was 34 years old. Perry's remains were buried in Port of Spain, Trinidad, but were later brought back to the United States and interred in Newport, Rhode Island. After resting briefly in the Old Common Burial Ground, his body was moved a final time to Newport's Island Cemetery, where his brother Matthew C. Perry is also interred.

Category: Pre-Civil War