Friends Good
Will Maiden Voyage 1811
Friends Good Will was built
in Michigan at River Rouge in 1810 as a merchant vessel. In the
summer of 1812, she was chartered by the federal government to take
military supplies to Fort Dearborn, a small military and trading
post at what is now Chicago.
She was returning with furs and skins when she was lured into the
harbor of Mackinaw Island. The British, having taken the island
just days before, were flying false colors above the fort ramparts.
The British confiscated the vessel, cargo, and crew, renaming her
Little Belt. She was armed, taken into service, and fought
with the Royal Navy until September of 1813, when she was recaptured
by United States Commodore Oliver Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie.
Within an hour after the great guns fell silent, Commodore Perry
mentioned her in his now famous dispatch, "We have met the enemy
and they are ours: Two Ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."
That sloop was Friends Good Will.
Friends Good Will then served in the United States Navy,
transporting General William Henry Harrison's troops across Lake
Erie in the successful invasion of Southern Ontario. She was driven
ashore in a storm south of Buffalo in December 1813. In early January
1814, during efforts to re-launch the ship, the British unceremoniously
burned the once-proud vessel during a raid on Buffalo.
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