Friends Good Will is a replica of a top sail merchant sloop. She was captured by the Britishin the War of 1812 and later recaptured Commodore Oliver Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie.
Categories:
- Type: [Replica Ship]
- Subject: [Merchant] [Cargo]
- Era: [1700-1815]
- Propulsion: [Sail]
260 Dyckman Avenue
South Haven
MI
49090
United States
269.637.8078
https://michiganmaritimemuseum.org/explore/our-fleet/friends-good-will/
Part of the Michigan Maritime Museum
Friends Good Will is a replica of a top sail merchant sloop. The original was built in Michigan at River Rouge in 1810 as a merchant vessel for Oliver Williams.
In the summer of 1812, she was chartered by the federal government to take military supplies to Fort Dearborn, a small military and trading post at what is now Chicago. She was returning when she was lured into the harbor of Mackinac Island. The British, having taken the island just days before, were flying false colors above the fort ramparts. The British confiscated the vessel, and renamed her Little Belt.
She fought with the Royal Navy until September of 1813, when she was recaptured by United States Commodore Oliver Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie. Commodore Perry mentioned her in his now famous dispatch, “We have met the enemy and they are ours: Two Ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” That sloop was Friends Good Will.
Friends Good Will then served in the United States Navy, transporting General William Henry Harrison’s troops across Lake Erie in the successful invasion of Southern Ontario. She was driven ashore in a storm south of Buffalo in December 1813. In early January 1814, during efforts to re-launch the ship, the British unceremoniously burned the once-proud vessel during a raid on Buffalo.