Shipwrights in Vergennes Were Key to Battle of Lake Champlain-- Part 2: On to Noah Brown and Otter Creek

The two American sloops lost to the British on July 3, 1813, were the USS Growler and USS Eagle, each with 11 guns.

Subtracting those two sloops from the American side and adding them to the British essentially gave them control of Lake Champlain.

The U.S. Navy authorized Thomas Macdonough to spend the money needed to bolster  his Lake Champlain fleet.  When winter came in 1813, he moved his ships six miles up Otter Creek from its delta on Lake Champlain, where they would be safer from naval attack from the British.

There, below the falls of Vergennes, Macdonough took over and expanded an existing commercial shipyard.  The location was ideal.  It was near forests that could provide plenty of lumber, and furnaces and forges that produced iron.

The Navy hired shipbuilder Noah Brown of New York City to supervise the shipyard.  The work accomplished in just a few months by Brown and the more than 100 workers he brought with him is staggering.

--Brock-Perry