Stephen Decatur, Sr.
Stephen Decatur, Sr. (June 1751 – November 11, 1808) was an American naval captain in the Revolutionary War and later in the Quasi-War. He was the father of Stephen Decatur, Jr. During the American Revolution he commanded the Royal Louis, the Comet, the Retaliation, the Rising Sun, and the Fair American.[1]
Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Decatur was a merchant captain before the Revolution. He married Ann Pine; in addition to their famous son, they had two children, James Decatur and Ann Decatur McKnight.
He commanded the ship USS Delaware and sailed in the first American Navy fleet to cross the Atlantic along with his son Stephen Decatur Jr.[2]
In 1800, Decatur commissioned Philadelphia, the very vessel that his son later burned several months after it ran aground and was captured near Tripoli harbor in 1803.
He died in 1808, probably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he is interred next to his famous son at St. Peter's Church.
[edit] References
- ^ MacKenzie, 1846 p.9
- ^ MacKenzie, 1846 p.22
[edit] External links
- Drawing of Decatur
- "Stephen Decatur, Sr.". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11900978. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
[edit] Bibliography
- MacKenzie, Alexander Slidell (1846). Life of Stephen Decatur: a commodore in the Navy of the United States.
C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1846 - Biography & Autobiography. pp. 443.
- Waldo, Samuel Putnam (1821). The life and character of Stephen Decatur.
P. B. Goodsell, Hartford, Conn., 1821. pp. 312.
