USS Constitution - Old Ironsides

You can see Boston through the masts, which are truncated in this shot. The USS Constitution was undergoing a little refurbishment when these photos were taken two years ago. She’s presentable again, now on the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, when Constitution came to fame.

She was launched long before, however, in October 1797, in Boston, not far from where Constitution remains berthed, still a commissioned ship in the US Navy, still the oldest commissioned warship afloat. She last sailed, briefly, under her own power in 1997 as part of her 200th anniversary. That had been for the first time since 1881.

The War of 1812 was such a convoluted episode in our history. President James Madison declared war on Great Britain over “Free Trade and Sailors Rights”, the latter a complaint over the nasty habit of British warships to increase the size of their navy by kidnapping US sailors.

New England nearly seceded over the war at the Hartford Convention, not wanting an interruption of trade with Great Britain.

We invaded Canada a few times, and were repelled each occasion. The final hopes of an autonomous state of Indian tribal control in the Midwest (or Northwest Territory as it was called then) -- supported by Great Britain, were dashed.

The peace treaty was finally signed in Belgium in 1815, but the Battle of New Orleans happened after that. Britain juggled the Napoleonic War at the same time, but when they finally dispatched Napoleon in 1814, they found time to burn Washington, D.C. And Francis Scott Key observed from the deck of a ship wondering in poetic form if the flag, or “Star Spangled Banner” was still there.


That’s a lot of unrelated, overlapping stuff to happen in war not often remembered today.

Though she did defeat four British warships in battle, the USS Constitution’s contributions did not affect the outcome of the War of 1812, but it provided enormous symbolism of a strong new nation. If the Revolutionary War gave us our independence from Great Britain, the War of 1812 solidified it politically, militarily, and especially psychologically. It was really our first taste of nationalism. A few decades after that Era of Good Feeling, national unity dissipated, bitter regionalism came back and led to the American Civil War.

The USS Constitution continues to remain an important symbol. “Old Ironsides”, a nickname earned in the War of 1812 after defeating the HMS Guerriere because the enemy’s cannonballs seemed to bounce off her, was also immortalized, of course, in poetry. This famous work of 1830 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was used to promote the ship’s value for American prestige and to stir public support for it not to be decommissioned. The public responded, as it always does, to this sleek frigate with the patriotic legend attached.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;--
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;--
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

She is not plucked apart, or when she is, she’s always put back together again. For more on the USS Constitution, have at look at the official Navy website, and here for the museum at the Charlestown Navy Yard where you can visit the ship.

Brant Point Lighthouse - Nantucket, Mass.

Here is Brant Point Lighthouse on Nantucket, America’s second oldest lighthouse after Boston Light. The structure pictured here, built in 1900, was the ninth lighthouse in this location since the 1700s. Lots of storms out that way destroyed the earlier lighthouses. A few fires, too.

When the first lighthouse was built, the town was called Sherburne, and a young whaling industry made the remote town a busy place. Brant Point was chosen for a lighthouse to mark the point all vessels would pass to enter the inner harbor.

In September 1781, Loyalist privateers entered Nantucket Harbor for other reasons, and American forces from Cape Cod arrived to set up cannons at Brant Point. They fired on the enemy ships and forced them out of the harbor.

The sixth lighthouse to stand here, built by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1788, was ceded to the federal government in 1795, when the town changed its name from Sherburne to Nantucket. This light went dark for the War of 1812.

By the 1820s, whaling was a huge industry here, and new lighthouse was built in 1825. This lighthouse still stands, west of the present Brant Point Light, part of U.S. Coast Guard Station Brant Point.

The current Brant Point Light was built 596 feet east of the previous one in 1901. It was automated in 1965. In 1983, the Brant Point Station was renovated by the Coast Guard. Brant Point Light's occulting red light is 26 feet above sea level, one of the lowest of New England's lights. You will see it as your ferry rounds the point to enter the harbor.

As noted in this previous post, the Brant Point Lighthouse was used as a model for the Mystic Seaport Lighthouse.

For more information on the Brant Point Lighthouse, have a look at this website, and this one.

Perry, Maine

The above sign standing vigil in the tall grass along Route 1 welcomes us to Perry, Maine. Main Street in Perry technically begins in Canada. Settled in the late 1750s and early 1760s with a trading post along the St. Croix River, the town was incorporated in 1818, while British still held the town of Eastport six miles to the south. The War of 1812 left a few discrepancies and some unfinished business along the Canadian border.

Perry was named for an American hero of that war, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Founded as part of Washington County, the area was still then part of Massachusetts. According to the Maine Historical Magazine published in 1893, at the first town meeting in March that year, Moses Lincoln was chosen as town moderator, and Eliphalet Olmstead was chosen as constable. Moses and Eliphalet seem to have gotten things pretty well in hand.

There was around 850 people living in Perry now, and part of the town lies within the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Indian Reservation. Sitting across Passamoquoddy Bay from Deer Island and Campobello Island, both in New Brunswick, Canada, town of Perry straddles a lot of boundaries, past and present, and a lot of history.

Quoddy Head and Passamaquoddy Bay

This is the Quoddy Head Lighthouse on Passamaquoddy Bay, Maine, whose 49-foot tower flashes light visible over 14 miles at sea, one hopes even on a foggy day like this. It was automated in 1988, and has been run on electricity since the late 19th century. The first wooden tower, built in 1808, was lit by sperm whale oil. This tower replaced it in 1857, with a lamp lit by kerosene in the 1880s.

Passamaquoddy, the name of the bay, comes from the native Passamaquoddy people. It is a Micmac word referring to the area of fertile pollock fishing.

During the War of 1812, the British occupied the area of what is now the Eastport, Maine. Just before and during this war, our boundary with Canada was not clearly defined, and establishing our presence with a lighthouse was part of making a claim as to where the border should be. The 1817 treaty established the lighthouse as being within the United States border, but the exact course of the boundary line in the area was still not settled until the early 20th century. West Quoddy, Maine is the easternmost point of land in the contiguous United states at 44° 49' N 66° 57' W.

Lubec, the far east

Lubec is located, as the big sign says, at the easternmost point of the United States. Here’s where you go the beat everybody else in the US to the sunrise.

Situated on Maine’s Passamaquoddy Bay, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge connects Lubec to Campobello Island, in New Brunswick, Canada, a fascinating and very worthwhile place to visit, as much for us as it was for FDR. Lubec is a beautiful and rugged, and quiet place to be, a far different coastal experience than one might have in the more croweded and more commerical spots farther south in Maine. This is Maine as it used to be.

Settled in the 1780s, the town separated from Eastport, Maine in 1811, and was the site of a smuggling trade in gypsum after the War of 1812. There are four lighthouses in the area, and many opportunites for whale, seal, and puffin watches, cruises, and hiking. And a great sign to have your picture taken by.

Want to go? Have a look at this website.

Been there? Done that? Bought the T-shirt? Let us know.