War of 1812

As tensions increased with Great Britain, the US began to build up its military forces at Sackets Harbor, including creating a major shipyard at what became Navy Point. The scale of buildup was such that the citizens were outnumbered on a scale of about 8:1 by thousands of sailors and soldiers, camp followers and traders. Some 3,000 workers built the warships, and most had been recruited from the New York City area.

Limited sanitary facilities and medical knowledge made the dense troop encampments breeding grounds for infectious diseases, such as typhus, which quickly spread to villagers, too. By February 1813, Sackets Harbor was the largest community in the state north of the Mohawk River.^[5]

The village was the site of two battles during the War of 1812. In the first battle in 1812, the brig USS Oneida and shore batteries repulsed an attacking force of five British ships. The village became a major base of operations for both the Navy (including US Marine Corps) and Army for the duration of the war. The Army built defensive earthworks around much of the village, and Fort Tompkins with barracks near Navy Point. Local militia built Fort Volunteer north of the village main streets.^[6] Thousands of troops gathered to defend the shipyard and village, and to attack Canada.

The numbers of troops so exceeded what could be built to shelter them that in 1813 troops were housed with residents, in stores, in barns and in tents. Village women counted themselves lucky if they were only cooking for officers. By the spring of 1813, the Army had gathered approximately 5,200 men in the village.^[7]

Most importantly, by 1813 the village became the US Naval Headquarters on the Great Lakes. Working at the Navy Point shipyard were 3,000 highly skilled men, including hundreds of shipbuilders and carpenters brought from New York City because of a lack of locally skilled craftsmen. The yard was constructed and supervised during the war by New York City naval architect and shipbuilder Henry Eckford. They rapidly built eleven warships to establish control over the Great Lakes.

Control of the Great Lakes ultimately ended up in the hands of both the peoples of Canada and the United States (with the exception of Lake Michigan, which is located entirely within the United States) and has been managed since 1909 by the International Joint Commission.

In the Second Battle of Sacket's Harbor in May 1813, British forces landed and attacked the village, but they were again driven off. Most of the American garrison and ships were at the western end of the lake at the time in another conflict. The American defense was marred by officers' mistaken orders at Navy Point to destroy stores and a partially constructed ship, to prevent capture by the British.

The buildup continued. In the fall of 1813, the Navy had moved its hospital off a ship and was temporarily renting the non-denominational meeting house from settler and preacher Edmund Luff.^[8] The next year a two-story hospital was constructed on land just north of the village and south of Mill Creek, on land that was bought from his father Samuel Luff. By the fall of 1814, Sackets Harbor was the third-largest population center in all of New York state, after Albany and New York City.^[4]

Until the federal government established the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, it had several schools for the training of midshipmen. Commodore Isaac Chauncey, writing to the Secretary of the Navy on November 30, 1814, described a school established at Sacket's Harbor on Lake Ontario in that year:

Sir. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have established a Mathematical School under the direction of my Chaplain the Revd. Mr. Felch who is fully competent to the duties of such a School. More than One hundred Officers attend this School, as they can be spared from duty and about Sixty Lieutenants and Midshipmen attend daily who make great progress in the various branches of Mathematics Navigation. etc.^[9]

The end of the war came in 1815 before the Navy completed construction of the last warship, the USS New Orleans. She was put into storage and never completed. She was finally scrapped in 1883.

19th through 20th centuries

The military recognized the continued importance of Sackets Harbor's strategic location. The Navy Shipyard operated until 1874, building ships such as USRC Active (1843), a revenue cutter. In 1848 a new Sackets Harbor Naval Station was constructed. After 1884, the base was used mostly for training.

The Army took over privately owned land of Samuel Luff just north of the village to build Madison Barracks (c. 1814–1819). Well into the late 19th century, this was a substantial military installation; the Army added new construction including housing, a school, a hospital, stables for horses, and supporting infrastructure. Ulysses S. Grant was among the officers who served here. During World War I, the base was used primarily as a hospital post, and in World War II as a training post.

Madison Barracks has been designated as an Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The New York State Museum of Military History calls it "a living museum of military architecture". Forts :: New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center Comprising the northeastern quarter of the village, the Madison Barracks is being slowly redeveloped as a planned commercial/residential area.^[10] The New York City consortium Fort Pike Associates holds title to unsold land in the complex.

In July 2017, the 24-acre (9.7 ha) Horse Island, located just west of the village, was acquired for preservation by the Civil War Trust, aided by a grant from the National Park Service. It was the site of a War of 1812 engagement. This was the first time in the US that a grant from the American Battlefield Land Grant program has been used to preserve a War of 1812 site.^[11]

Sackets Harbor developed as an important Great Lakes port through most of the 19th century. Commercial shipyards were built that adjoined Navy Point. In 1817 a local consortium of military officers and businessmen—General Jacob Brown, Commodore Melancthon Taylor Woolsey, Charles Smyth, Eric Lusher, Elisha Camp, Samuel F. Hooker, and Hunter Crane—financed the construction of the 240-ton Ontario. It was the first US steamboat to be built west of the Hudson River and operated on the Great Lakes.^[12] This was the beginning of extensive steamboat traffic on the Great Lakes, including passenger boats that stopped at towns around the lakes.

On July 12, 1834, Louis Hooker, a son of Samuel Hooker, was aboard the schooner Illinois from Sackets Harbor when it was the first commercial ship to enter Chicago harbor, a sign of what was soon to be greatly increased Great Lakes trade with that city and region.^[13] Samuel F. Hooker and his sons had shipping interests in Sackets Harbor with national networks; their firm had steamboats based in Louisville, Kentucky. These were part of the Mississippi River trade to and from New Orleans, a major port and one of the wealthiest cities in the nation before the American Civil War. Thus Hooker and similar upstate New York businessmen gained some of their wealth from the domestic slave trade, as Louisville was a major shipping point for slaves sold to New Orleans markets and the Deep South.

As cities industrialized and major economic development moved West, from 1870–1930 the village became a popular destination for families taking lengthy summer vacations. It attracted visitors from Chicago and other major cities around the Great Lakes, many of whom had family who had lived in Sackets Harbor before the mid-19th century westward migration. Some maintained second homes in historic properties of the village.

In the early 21st century, heritage tourism and summer recreation have been renewed sources of growth for the village. Navy Point is a marina providing moorings and facilities for private boats.

The Elisha Camp House, Galloo Island Light, Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor Battlefield, Sackets Harbor Village Historic District, and Union Hotel are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[14]

Notable people

• Frances Bible, opera singer
• American military officer and explorer Zebulon Pike was buried in Sackets Harbor after his death in combat at the Battle of York in 1813. His remains were interred with honors at the military cemetery on Dodge Avenue.^[15] A namesake warship, USS General Pike, was built and launched at Sackets Harbor before the end of that year.^[16]
• Brigadier General and former U.S. Representative from Maryland Leonard Covington, who also perished in 1813, at the Battle of Crysler's Farm.
• Colonel Elisha Camp founded and built historic Camp Manor in 1811. He also served the US Army in the War of 1812 as one of its Quartermasters under General Jacob Brown.
• President Ulysses S. Grant served two tours of duty at Madison Barracks in Sackets Harbor as a junior army officer.
• General Mark Wayne Clark was born at the Madison Barracks.
• Bartender Jerry Thomas, considered "the father of American mixology," was born in Sackets Harbor in 1830.
• Wisconsin State Assemblyman and Senator Hobart Sterling Sacket was born in Sackets Harbor in 1844.
• Wisconsin State Assemblyman Samuel Ryan, Jr., was born in Sackets Harbor in 1824.
• Martha Foote Crow, writer, literary scholar and pioneer in women's higher education in the United States, was born in Sackets Harbor in 1854.

Additional facts

• Company B of the United States Regiment of Dragoons, which is today 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, was organized at Sackets Harbor on July 29, 1833. It moved west to join the rest of the regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Lemay, Missouri, arriving September 6, 1833.
• The World War II tanker, the SS Sackets Harbor, was named after the village.
• Sackets Harbor is the hometown of "Funny Cide", the famous gelding owned by Sackatoga Stable. In 2003 he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, making him a contender for the Triple Crown, but lost the Belmont.
• The village is the setting for American Girl's Caroline Abbott doll, introduced in 2013, and her stories,^[17] which are set during the War of 1812.^[18]