USS Madison (1812)

History
United States
Name	Madison
Namesake	President James Madison
Builder	Sackets Harbor yard of Henry Eckford
Launched	26 November 1812
Decommissioned	ca. 1815
Fate	Sold 1825[1]
General characteristics
Type	Corvette
Displacement	503 tons[2]
Length	112 ft 0 in (34.14 m)
Beam	32 ft 6 in (9.91 m)
Sail plan	schooner-rigged
Complement	200 officers and enlisted men
Armament	14 × long 18–pounder guns 8 × 32-pounder carronades[3]

USS Madison was a U.S. Navy corvette (or sloop) built during the War of 1812 for use on the Great Lakes. She was named for James Madison, a Founding Father and the nation's president at the time.

USS Madison was built at Sackets Harbor, New York by Henry Eckford. She was launched on Lake Ontario on 26 November 1812, Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliot in command. She was the first U.S. corvette launched on the lake.

Madison departed Sackets Harbor on 25 April 1813 as flagship of Commodore Isaac Chauncey. She saw active duty in the War of 1812 as part of Chauncey's Lake Ontario Squadron. Madison participated in the capture of York, now Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in April 1813; the attacks on Fort George in May 1813; and engagements with British squadrons on Lake Ontario from 7–11 August 1813, and from 11–22 September 1813.

After the end of the war, Madison, a fast ship-rigged vessel that was not considered very safe to operate, was laid up at Sackets Harbor until sold in 1825.^[1]

Notes

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• Chapelle, Howard I. The History of the American Sailing Navy: The Ships and Their Development. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1949. ISBN 1-56852-222-3.
• Jampoler, Andrew C. A. "Who Was Henry Eckford?" Naval History, December 2007, Pages 38–45.

This page was last edited on 6 July 2023, at 15:50