HMS General Hunter

In 1805, the Upper Canada Provincial Marine schooner Hope was run aground and wrecked. To replace Hope, a new schooner was ordered to exactly the same design in 1806. The vessel was constructed at Amherstburg Royal Naval Dockyard in Amherstburg, Upper Canada. General Hunter was launched in 1807.[1] The ship had a displacement of 93 tons burthen and was 54 feet (16 m) long at the keel, with a beam of 18 feet (5 m) and a draught of 8 feet 6 inches (3 m). The ship had a depth of hold of 8 feet (2 m).[2][3]

After launching, General Hunter lacked armament. Eight carronades were allocated to be used to arm General Hunter and fellow Provincial Marine vessel Earl of Camden. During her first six years she served on the Upper Great Lakes as a Provincial Marine patrol and transport vessel. In 1810, General Hunter and Earl of Camden were sent to Pelee Island to transport cedar timber for the construction of Queen Charlotte at Amherstburg. With the launch of Queen Charlotte in 1810, Earl of Camden was discarded and General Hunter became the only Provincial Marine vessel capable of operating on Lake Huron. However, by December 1811, the Provincial Marine had left the vessel's condition deteriorate enough that General Hunter was identified as a candidate for replacement should war break out.[4]

After the War of 1812 began, General Hunter was under the command of Lieutenant Frédérick Rolette when it captured the schooner Cuyahoga Packet with part of General Hull's baggage aboard, including the disposition of American forces. General Hunter approached Cuyahoga Packet on 3 July 1812, which was transporting 40 soldiers. Rolette, with six to seven of his crew, entered a longboat, rowed to the American vessel which had not heard of the declaration of war, and seized the ship at gunpoint by surprise. This was the first significant act of the war. General Hunter, alongside Queen Charlotte supported the attack and capture of Detroit on 16 August, firing on the American defensive installations.[5]

In 1813, General Hunter was converted to a brig, and received two 6-pounder, four 4-pounder and two 2-pounder long guns and two 12-pounder carronades, for a total 10 guns. Commander Robert Heriot Barclay arrived at Amherstburg to take command of the squadron on Lake Erie in June 1813 and reviewed his group of vessels. He stated that General Hunter was a "miserably small thing". At the time, the vessel's company of 30 was mostly made up of soldiers from the army.[6]

Battle of Lake Erie

Battle of Lake Erie, Ballou's Pictorial 1856

At the time of Barclay's arrival, the Americans were constructing larger, more powerful ships at Erie in a bid to wrest control of the lake. Barclay intended to raid Erie and burn the new construction before the vessels could enter service, but was prevented from enacting the plan by the Army, which refused to give him the troops he needed. Barclay instead set up a blockade of Erie, intending to interdict the ships if they launched. Barclay put this plan in motion three days after arriving at Amherstburg. On 30 July 1813, Barclay's squadron lifted the blockade in order to resupply at Amherstburg. During his absence, the American commander Oliver Hazard Perry launched the ships. Upon his return, Barclay saw the powerful American ships on the lake and the squadron retreated to Amherstburg to await the launch of Detroit.[7]

At the end of July, Perry began his own blockade, preventing the water transport of supplies between Long Point and Amherstburg. This caused shortages in basic provisions among the British, and also prevented the armament of Detroit from arriving. After Detroit was completed, Barclay was forced to shift guns from among his active vessels in order to arm the ship. On 9 September 1813, with Detroit added to the squadron, Barclay sailed from his anchorage in the Detroit River to break the blockade.[8]

With a crew of 45, General Hunter was situated third in Barclay's line of battle, behind Detroit and in front of Queen Charlotte.[9] The vessel, now under Royal Navy command and captained by Lieutenant George Bignell, took part in the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September. During the battle, USS Caledonia pounded General Hunter with more powerful armament, to which the British vessel was inadequately unable to reply to. After USS Lawrence was disabled and Perry shifted his command to USS Niagara, the four trailing American schooners closed with General Hunter and Queen Charlotte and engaged them. Once both Detroit and Queen Charlotte struck their colours, General Hunter and the other smaller ships of the squadron surrendered.[10]

After the war, General Hunter was sold to a private owner in the United States, then was soon purchased by the United States Army to become a supply vessel serving on the upper Great Lakes and the ship's name shortened to Hunter. In August 1816, while sailing from Michilimakinac at the northern end of Lake Huron to Detroit, Hunter was caught in a violent gale, and the crew were forced to beach the ship on the Canadian side of the lake at what is now Southampton, Ontario. The ship master, seven crew members and two young passengers were all able to get safely ashore.[11][12]

The shipwreck site was later quietly salvaged by United States Army vessels which had been dispatched to the site. Following the salvaging, the hull remains were burned and abandoned and soon were buried under the sand. Several ship frames pushed up through the sand of Southampton Beach in 2001 and a series of archaeological excavations revealed the presence of a large part of the hull of General Hunter buried just a metre or two under the beach sand. A full interior excavation of the hull in 2004 provided hundreds of artifacts. The artifacts and a 3⁄4-size ship deck replica of General Hunter are on display at the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre in Southampton, Ontario.[12]

• Hore, Peter (2016). The Trafalgar Chronicle: Dedicated to Naval History in the Nelson Era. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4738-9572-0.
• Kidd, Kenneth (20 January 2012). "War of 1812 fighting vessel HMS General Hunter came to rest in Southampton, Ont". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 28 July 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
• Lardas, Mark (2012). Great Lakes Warships 1812–1815. New Vanguard. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78096-048-7.
• Lardas, Mark (2017). USS Lawrence vs HMS Detroit: The War of 1812 on the Great Lakes. New York: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-1582-8.
• Malcomson, Robert (2001). Warships of the Great Lakes 1754–1834. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-115-5.

• HMS Hunter's career
• Flag of ship captured in 1812