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Capture of the "Tigress" and "Scorpion"

Photo by contributor Burke Lush - Posted August, 2006

Photo from Google Street View ©2011 Google - Posted January, 2011

Plaque Location

The District of Algoma
Municipality of Huron Shores
On the east side of Lakeside Drive just north of Stanley Street

Coordinates: N 46 15.630 W 83 33.955

Click here for a larger map

Plaque Text

Some 40 km southwest of here lies the Detour Passage between Drummond Island and Michigan's upper peninsula. In August, 1814, it was occupied by the armed U.S. schooners "Tigress" and "Scorpion", whose intention it was to prevent supplies reaching the British garrison at Michilimackinac. On September 1 a British force of seamen, soldiers and Indians under Lieutenants Miller Worsley, R.N., and Andrew Bulger left Michilimackinac in small boats to attack the enemy. The "Tigress" was boarded on September 3 under cover of darkness. Two days later the "Scorpion" came to anchor nearby and, unaware of her sister ship's capture allowed her to come alongside. Taken by surprise, the "Scorpion" was captured after a sharp fight.

Related Ontario plaques
The Tigress and Scorpion
The Nancy
The Rush-Bagot Agreement

More
Information

More
War of 1812

Here are the visitors' comments for this page.

> Posted September 10, 2014
This week marks the bicentennial of the capture of these ships. The federal and provincial plaques do not mention that these ships were two of three which had attacked Wasaga Beach (Battle of Nottawasaga Bay) just weeks earlier, destroying a blockhouse and leaving the only British warship on the upper lakes, the schooner Nancy, to burn to the waterline. The man in charge of the Nancy, Miller Worsley, escaped the US attack with most of his men, regrouped, and avenged her loss with this surprising and daring capture. It's the kind of comeuppance normally reserved for a blockbuster film.
At around the same time, 200 years ago, the British had recently burned Washington, and were laying siege to Baltimore's Fort McHenry, an anniversary being marked with great fanfare this week at that national monument. The celebration centers on a poem inspired by a flag, written by a prisoner of war aboard another British ship. More than a century later, The Star Spangled Banner would become the US national anthem. Canadian Ship Athabaskan is scheduled to join some 31 other vessels in marking this milestone anniversary. -Wayne

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