Ship's Crew

Thomas McDonough, the son of an American Revolutionary War veteran, was born in Delaware on December 31, 1783. Orphaned at age 12, he worked as a store clerk for several years before getting a midshipman’s warrant in 1800. For reasons unknown, his surname became “Macdonough.” He made one cruise during the Quasi-War with France aboard the 24-gun corvette Ganges. He then served in both the Second and Third Mediterranean Squadrons during the Barbary War, and distinguished himself as a volunteer in the crew that destroyed the captured frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbor. Promoted to lieutenant in 1807, he was ordered to the sloop-of-war Wasp and, in 1810, commanded the gunboats on the Connecticut shore. Later that year, he received permission to make a merchant voyage, after which he returned to command gunboats in New England. In October 1812, Macdonough took command of naval forces on Lake Champlain. There followed nearly a year of frantic competition with the British in Canada to achieve control of the lake. In September 1814, Macdonough won a hard fought battle with a British squadron in the Battle of Lake Champlain off Plattsburgh, New York, and prevented their invasion of the state. He was awarded a Congressional gold medal and promotion to captain. From 1815 to 1818, Macdonough commanded the Portsmouth Navy Yard. In 1818, he took charge of the Mediterranean Squadron, and then the ship-of-the-line Ohio at New York until 1823. All through this period he suffered from tuberculosis.