Perry, Oliver Hazard (1785-1819)
Role:Dates:
Portrait Location: Deaccessioned in 1980
Artist: Stuart, Jane (1812-1888)
Portrait Date:
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 39 1/2
Framed Dimensions:
Brown Portrait Number: 14
Brown Historical Property Number: 2232
Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, in 1785, the son of a Naval officer. Perry's father helped secure a commission for his son, who joined the Navy as a midshipman at the age of fourteen. This was, at the time, not an unusually early age for a boy to go to sea, and Perry was luckier than most, in that his initial tour of duty was on the ship his father commanded, the General Greene, at that time stationed in the Caribbean. Perry spent his next years in the Navy stationed on ships off the coasts of Europe and Africa, fighting against piracy in the Tripolitan War. In 1807, Perry was promoted to lieutenant, and took charge of the construction and manning of a fleet of gunboats. Two years later, he was given command of a small schooner named the Revenge , which sunk in 1811 during a surveying mission in Rhode Island's Block Island Sound. Perry, among others, was court-martialed during the investigation of this accident; however, he was exonerated of fault and the onus of the event was laid on his incompetent pilot. His forced inactivity was not without its benefits; the heretofore transient Naval man had the opportunity to settle down sufficiently to meet and woo Elizabeth Champlin Mason, whom he married in May of 1811. The couple enjoyed a year of leisure, but after being exonerated in the Revenge incident, Perry was soon remobilized. When the War of 1812 arose, Perry was assigned to the Navy's Lake Erie Command. If sailing the Great Lakes sounds rather unimpressive today, the post carried with it a similar lack of prestige in the Navy of Perry's age. However, given even more unsavory alternative posts, the new Master Commandant Perry was grateful to assume command of the fledgling Lake Erie fleet. Of course, Perry is best known for his starring role in the Battle of Lake Erie, during which he and his fleet of gunboats forced the British flotilla to surrender, despite heavy casualties and damage. After the battle, Perry wrote his famous summary of the engagement in a dispatch to Washington: "We have met the enemy and he is ours."
After the war of 1812, Perry continued in his Naval career. However, two rather florid incidents with other officers, which each ended in duels, prompted Navy brass and President James Monroe to get Perry out of the way by sending him on the United States' 1819 diplomatic voyage to South America. Although the intention was to remove Perry temporarily from an awkward situation, the trip to Venezuela accidentally ended in his permanent elimination: while in Angostura, he contracted yellow fever and died.
This painting was by Jane Stuart, the daughter of George Washington's most famous painter, Gilbert Stuart. Stuart, though a personable and talented man, was an extremely poor manager of his money. When he died in 1828, he left his family in penury. His daughter, Jane Stuart (1812-1880), was forced to take up her father's profession in order to support her mother and siblings. She was best known for her miniatures and portraits, of which this is an example. This is probably a copy of a portrait her father made of the same subject. It was sold by Brown in 1980.