HISTORY

USS Scourge

Captured in the mouth of the Genessee River at the beginning of the war. The ship was outfitted with ten guns and a railing for their protection. Most of the vessels on Lake Ontario had low centers of gravity. As a restult, adding the guns and rails meant reaising this point to near dangerous levels, as it caused the ship to be top heavy.

On August 7th, 1813 the USS Scourge was anchored off Twelve Mile Creek, not for from the Niagara River. A sudden storm at night caught the ship unprepared. Ninty men drowned and only six survived.

I now remember to have heard a strange rushing noise to windward, although it made no impression on me at the time, there not being a breath of air and no motion to the water ... Suddenly, a flash of lightning almost blinded me. The thunder came at the next instant, and with it a rushing of winds that fairly smothered the clap.

The instant I was aware there was a squall, I sprang for the jib-sheet. I jumped on a man named Leonard Lewis, and called on him to lend me a hand. I next let fly the larboard, or lee top-sail-sheet, got hold of the clew-line, and, asissted by Lewis got the clew half up. The water was now up to my breast, and I knew the scooner must go under.