The first USS Tigress was a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

 of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 that took part in the Battle of Lake Erie

Battle of Lake Erie

The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of Great Britain's Royal Navy...

 in 1813, which in September 1814 was captured by the British and subsequently served in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 as HMS Surprise.

Battle of Lake Erie, 1813

Built at Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...

, by Adam and Noah Brown, as the schooner Amelia, the ship was launched in the spring of 1813, probably in April. Acquired by the Navy for service with Captain Oliver Hazard Perry

Oliver Hazard Perry

United States Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island , the son of USN Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander, a direct descendant of William Wallace...

's forces on Lake Erie

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...

, Amelia was renamed Tigress and placed under the command of Lt. Augustus H. M. Conkling.

Tigress took part in the spirited engagement at Put-in-Bay, Ohio

Put-in-Bay, Ohio

Put-in-Bay is a village located on South Bass Island in Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, United States. Many believe that the name originates from some early maps of South Bass Island that showed the harbor being named Pudding Bay, probably because it was shaped like a pudding sack. The...

, on 10 September 1813, the Battle of Lake Erie

Battle of Lake Erie

The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of Great Britain's Royal Navy...

. Perry's resounding victory over Commodore Robert Heriot Barclay

Robert Heriot Barclay

Robert Heriot Barclay was a British naval officer who was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, and its North American counterpart, the War of 1812....

's squadron in this battle forced the British to abandon their plans for trans-frontier raids with their Indian allies into American territory. Instead, since their position in the area around Detroit had been rendered untenable by American control of Lake Erie, the British withdrew.

Battle of the Thames, 1813

Perry consequently convoyed American troops into the territory formerly held by the British, investing Malden

Fort Malden

Fort Malden is a fort that stands on the remains of Fort Amherstburg in Amherstburg, Ontario. The original fort was abandoned by the British/Canadians in 1813 when Southwest Ontario fell into American hands. The Americans began building a smaller replacement fort on the same site, but this was...

 on 23 September and Detroit on the 27th. On 2 October, a small naval flotilla — Tigress, and — under the command of Lt. Jesse D. Elliott

Jesse Elliott

Jesse Duncan Elliot was a United States naval officer and commander of American naval forces in Lake Erie during the War of 1812, especially noted for his controversial actions during the Battle of Lake Erie.-Early life:...

 — ascended the Thames River

Thames River (Ontario)

The Thames River is located in southwestern Ontario, Canada.The Thames flows west through southwestern Ontario, through the cities of Woodstock, London and Chatham to Lighthouse Cove on Lake St. Clair...

 to support an overland expedition under General William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States , an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when elected, the oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the...

. In the ensuing Battle of the Thames

Battle of the Thames

The Battle of the Thames, also known as the Battle of Moraviantown, was a decisive American victory in the War of 1812. It took place on October 5, 1813, near present-day Chatham, Ontario in Upper Canada...

, Harrison's army routed the mixed British and Indian force. The Indian leader Tecumseh

Tecumseh

Tecumseh was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812...

 was killed in the battle which forced the British to withdraw from the vicinity, never more to threaten the American northwest territories.

Captured by the British, 1814

Tigress subsequently sailed for Lake Huron

Lake Huron

Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...

, where she took part in blockading operations into the summer of 1814. She and Scorpion drew the task of standing watch on the entrance to the Nottawasaga River

Nottawasaga River

The Nottawasaga River is a river in southern Ontario, Canada. Its headwaters are located on the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine. It flows through the Minesing Swamp, recognized as a wetland of international significance , and empties into Nottawasaga Bay, an inlet of Georgian Bay, at...

, the sole outlet to the lake for the town of Michilimackinac

Michilimackinac

Michilimackinac is a name for the region around the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Early settlers of North America applied the term to the entire region along Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Today it is mostly within the boundaries of Michigan, in the United States...

. By early September, the situation in this town was desperate. If the blockade were not lifted within a fortnight, dwindling food supplies would force the British to surrender.

To avert such a development, four boatloads of British and Indians set out from Michilimackinac on the night of 3 September 1814. They slipped alongside Tigress — which was anchored close inshore — and boarded the schooner. A brief and bloody battle followed; and — although "warmly received" by the vessel's crew — the British captured the ship in five minutes. "The defense of this vessel," wrote Lt. Miller Worsley

Miller Worsley

Miller Worsley was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for playing a major part in the Engagement on Lake Huron in the Anglo-American War of 1812....

, in command of the attackers, "did credit to her officers, who were all severely wounded."

While the surviving officers and men were sent ashore as prisoners of war, Worsley retained the greater part of the boarding party on board and kept the ship's American flag flying. Scorpion soon arrived on 6 September and anchored some two miles distant. Worsley, in a daring stroke, ran the captured Tigress alongside Scorpion and captured her, too. Both American vessels and their captured crews were later taken to Michilimackinac.

Fate

The British renamed their prizes soon thereafter. Tigress became HMS Surprise — an appropriate name in view of the nature of her capture — and Scorpion became HMS Confiance. Both subsequently served the Royal Navy until the end of the war, when they were laid up and allowed to sink at their moorings, either at Penetanguishene or Fort Malden

Fort Malden

Fort Malden is a fort that stands on the remains of Fort Amherstburg in Amherstburg, Ontario. The original fort was abandoned by the British/Canadians in 1813 when Southwest Ontario fell into American hands. The Americans began building a smaller replacement fort on the same site, but this was...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. One of the wrecks retrieved from Penetanguishene Bay in 1933 may be the Tigress, but identity of the badly-decayed hulks is uncertain.