Stephen Champlin's Postwar Career-- Part 1

After his capture, the British paroled him figuring that his wounds would be mortal.  He went back home to Connecticut where he recovered from the wounds.  On March 28, 1815, he was ordered to join Perry's fleet which was heading to the Mediterranean to battle the Barbary Pirates off the coast of Algeria and Tunisia.

In the fall of 1815, in consideration of his wounds, he was ordered to  to return to Erie in the spring of 1816. There he underwent a difficult operation to remove the many splinters of shattered bone that remained in his leg.

From 1816-1818, he commanded the USS  Porcupine surveying the Canadian-American border along the upper Great Lakes.  Upon his return to Erie, he was beached in a strong gale at Buffalo.  During his enforced stay in Buffalo, he met and courted Minerva  Lydia Pomeroy whom he married there  on January 9, 1817.

She was a Buffalo socialite of the city. She and Stephen had eight children.

--Brock-Perry

USS Porcupine-- Part 3: U.S. Coastal Survey and Revenue Cutter Service

From the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association.

In 1816, the Porcupine was commissioned as a survey vessel in the newly formed United States Coastal Survey Office, and worked the border between the United States and Canada under the command of War of 1812 hero Stephen Champlin (he commanded the USS Scorpion at the Battle of Lake Erie)..  In 1819, it entered the United States Revenue Cutter Service.

In 1825 it was sold by the government and five years later renamed the Caroline.  It had several owners over the rest of its career, including Ferry & Sons of Grand Haven, Michigan, and was used extensively in the lumber trade until she became unseaworthy.

--Brock-Perry