USS Niagara (1813) - Centennial

Centennial

As part of celebrations for the centennial of the Battle of Lake Erie, the Niagara was raised from Misery Bay in April 1913. Its keel was found to be in good enough condition for the brig to be rebuilt. Efforts to rebuild the Niagara were hampered by the lack of original plans. The restored Niagara was launched on June 7, complete with a new bowsprit, rigging and reproduction cannons supplied by the Boston Navy Yard. From mid-July to mid-September, the Niagara was towed to various ports on the Great Lakes—including Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland—by the USS Wolverine, the Navy's first iron-hulled warship. Ownership of the Niagara was transferred to the City of Erie in 1917, where it remained docked deteriorating.

The City of Erie transferred ownership of the Niagara to the newly formed "USS Niagara Foundation" in 1929, which was tasked with "acquiring and restoring the ship and making it the centerpiece of a museum." The onset of the Great Depression forced the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to take ownership, through the Flagship Niagara Commission, two years later. $50,000 was made available for another restoration in 1931, but by 1938 the state stopped its funding, leaving the restoration unfinished. The Niagara was transferred to the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, predecessor of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and became a project for the Works Progress Administration. The Historical Commission contracted Howard I. Chapelle to draw up plans for another restoration of the Niagara, based on other period ships that were built by Noah Brown, like the Saratoga. According to Chapelle, very little of the original Niagara remained, as parts of it had been sold as souvenirs, and the 1913 reconstruction was not accurate to the period. The hull of the Niagara was launched in October 1943 without any masts, spars, or rigging. It was placed in a concrete cradle in 1951. Discovery of dry rot throughout every part of the Niagara made it clear that a complete reconstruction would eventually be needed. Funds were appropriated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to make the Niagara "presentable" for the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Lake Erie in 1963 with the addition of rigging and cannons. The Niagara was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 11, 1973.