A little spit jutting into Black River Bay at Sackets Harbor (formerly Sackett’sHarbor), N. Y., can claim more records in naval history than almost any similar property on the shores of the Seven Seas.
It is the world’s smallest naval station; it is the only yard ever to be commanded by a woman; it harbored the world’s largest frigate and the only American ships of the line to ignore the rule that such must bear the names of states. Here began the original shipbuilding race, under the enterprising Henry Eckford, in the days when every oak forest was a battleship in embryo.
Navy Point, as the yard officially is designated, or Shiphouse Point, as it is locally known, began its career in 1809, when Lieutenant Melanchthon T. Woolsey chose it as base for the brig Oneida, built at Oswego to enforce the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts on Lake Ontario.
War with Great Britain three years later brought unexpected importance to Navy Point. It was attacked by a Canadian squadron (operations had not passed then to the Royal Navy) and was defended principally by Sailing Master William Vaughn with a 32-pounder. Having no 32-pound balls he fired 24-pounders expanded to fit bore by strips of rag carpet, Until a retrieved 32-pounder brought opportunity for fine marksmanship. With it he raked the Royal George, flagship, causing 32 casualties. The Canadians went home and Sackets Harbor was saved.
Commodore Isaac Chauncey, U. S. Navy, commander of the Constitution before Tripoli, presently arrived with Eckford, 40 carpenters, and 100 seamen. Creation of a navy was started at once, the Madison of twenty-four 32-pound carconades being the first important unit. Soon Chauncey had the bigger squadron, for the Madison slid into the bay after nine weeks, built, like her numerous successors, from standing timber.
When Sir James Lucas Yeo reached Kingston, Ontario, to represent England’s sea power, he took steps to overcome the preponderance his opponent had obtained. Then began the original building competition. Carpenters fought the war with adz, hammer, and saw, smiths with forge and anvil.
Taking advantage of Chauncey’s absence with his squadron at the head of the lake, Yeo and General Prevost, commander in chief, attacked Sackets Harbor May 28, 1813, resolved to wipe out the naval base. Prevost brought 1,000 troops and numerous Indians. Landing south of the town, they drove in the militia, seriously threatening a regiment of dragoons, the only force of regulars opposing them, when Brigadier General Brown, commanding the defense, fell upon the British rear, routing them with rallied militiamen. Prevost retired but serious damage had been inflicted indirectly.
Advised early in the battle that the regulars were retiring, Lieutenant W. Chauncey, left in charge at the yard, ordered the new sloop General Pike and the warehouses burned. Before the fire could be extinguished, damage estimated at $500,000 had been caused the vessel and stores.
From brigs the “backbone” of the freshwater fleets expanded to corvettes, frigates, and finally, as hostilities neared conclusion, to ships of the line. Yeo led in these conceptions; Eckford countered each innovation with a bigger product produced with astonishing celerity. Thus Chauncey’s Superior of 66 guns became the largest frigate of her time. Peace found Yeo temporarily supreme with the ship of the line, St. Lawrence, 102 guns, but Eckford building the New Orleans and Chippewa each of 120.
Sackets Harbor had no strategic value from a military view, save in the presence of the Navy and the protection and transportation it provided. Thence sailed Pike’s expedition against York that concluded gloriously in his death. General Wilkinson mobilized his division at the port for the descent on Montreal, a fiasco in which the Navy’s part was altogether creditable. Thither came the Secretary of War, General Armstrong, with the adjutant general, designating Sackets Harbor for a spell as the headquarters of the Army.
The New Orleans was nearly ready for launching when work was suspended. A house was erected over the hull and she was listed as a battleship, “on the stocks,” only American vessel of her class to bear the name of a city, until 1882, when sold for breaking up.
Navy Point was retained as a yard, reduced to the four acres of the hook-shaped spit and a strip along the brow of the promontory. Lieutenant Thomas Brownell remained as senior officer with a nucleus force and a shipkeeper for the New Orleans.
For 10 years Chauncey’s squadron lay moored in the harbor. In May, 1825, all square-rigged vessels were sold, but the brig Jefferson, one of Eckford’s early brood, was left to rot through the years. With present low water its keel and planking protrude upon the beach.
For a time the station was fully officered, having its commandant and captain of the yard. Names prominent in naval records appear upon its roster. There Captain Josiah Tattnall penned his resignation to espouse the Confederacy. Captain George N. Hollins, also a Secessionist commodore, was a former commandant. Rear Admiral J. B. Montgomery, who had received his midshipman’s commission at Sackets Harbor in 1812, returned as commodore in 1866. .
In the seventies the yard was abandoned as an active station, being placed under charge of the shipkeeper, Albert H. Metcalf. Demolition of the New Orleans materially reduced his importance. Upon his death his widow was appointed ship- keeper, nominal commandant until 1915, when the Navy Department leased the property to the New York Naval Militia as a base for its Fourth Division, organized two years before by Lieutenant Commander Harrison J. Angley. A year later the former Spanish gunboat Sandoval, that had been a training ship at Annapolis from 1901 to 1906, was assigned to Sackets Harbor for the Reserve.
The 13th Fleet Division, Naval Reserve, which succeeded the Fourth Division, now employs Sub-Chaser No. 431 for its cruises, docking this World War fighter beside the weathered timbers of the Jefferson.
Encroachments of peace have constricted Chauncey’s base to the four acres of Navy Point, for in shipbuilding days Eckford’s enterprise surrounded the harbor. Piles still protrude that upheld the shiphouse and the cradle of the New Orleans, gone these many years; the half buried Jefferson, sole survivor of the fleet that plied these waters, disintegrates in the mud. Efforts are under way to restore the remaining edifices, the dwellings of the commandant and captain of the yard, sail loft, and warehouse as nearly to their original appearance as possible. Of the many structures that must have arisen while Chauncey and Eckford toiled, only one survives, the shipkeeper’s cottage, now the carpenter’s shop, and the date of its erection is a matter of conjecture.