Oliver Perry Baldwin, Sr.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/32287331/oliver-perry-baldwin
Isaac Baldwin
Sex: M
Birth: ABT. 1770
Death: 12 APR 1816 in the Mediterranean Sea, aboard the frigate Java in the Mediterranean Sea
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In 1809 Oliver Hazard Perry was given command of the schooner-rigged dispatch boat Revenge. The following year, during a night of heavy fog, the Revenge grounded on Watch Hill Reef offshore from Perry's native Rhode Island and was soon demolished by the pounding surf. Although Perry was exonerated in a court-martial (the pilot took the blame), losing his ship left a cloud over his name.
Captain's Clerk Isaac Baldwin's health was utterly destroyed by the exposure he suffered following the wreck of the schooner 'Revenge' on Watch Hill Reef (Rhode Island) in January of 1811. Exposure triggered an illness marked by " . . . a violent cough, rheumatic pains and vomiting of blood." Wrote Baldwin in appealing for a pension nearly 5 years later: "I regret that I cannot appear before you personally, the injury having been accompanied by visable marks that speak more forcibly than words, and which I must carry to my grave . . . My sufferings have been witnessed by the hundreds in (NY) City, but they never can be described." In an attempt to help Baldwin recover his health in a milder climate, (Admiral) Oliver H Perry, his old commanding officer, gave him a **sinecure appointment** as Captain's Clerk on the frigate "Java" on the Mediterranean station. His pension application in Washington was still pending when Isaac Baldwin died off Algiers, 12 April 1816.
McKee, Christopher. A Gentlemanly and Honorably Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815.Naval Institute Press, 1991. p.460.
Sources cited by author Christopher McKee are all in the possession of the Naval Service:
Letter (Midshipman to Lieutenant) : Isaac Baldwin to B.W. Crowninshield. 20 January 1815.
War of 1812 Pension Application Files, Navy Widow #62.
Letter: Isaac Baldwin to Benjamin Homans. 1 December 1815.
Letter: Elizabeth Baldwin to Benjamin Homans. 25 July 1816.
Sinecure Appointment: Means an office which requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service.
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Baldwin, Isaac. N.Y. Captain's Clerk. He served on board the JAVA and died 12 April 1816. His widow, Elizabeth L. Baldwin was pensioned 13 December 1817 at the rate of $150 per annum. 1819-1848.
Naval Pensioners of the US Navy, 1800-1851. Lloyd De Witt Bockstruck. Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002. p. 10.
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A History of Frigate JAVA: Java was a 44-gun frigate built at Baltimore in 1814 and 1815 by Flannigan and Parsons. Not completed until after the end of the War of 1812, the USS Java, Captain Oliver Hazard Perry in command, got underway from Baltimore on 5 August 1815; picked up spare rigging at Hampton Roads and New York, and sailed to Newport, R.I., to fill out her crew. Ordered to the Mediterranean, the new frigate stood out from Newport on 22 January 1816 in the face of a bitter gale. At sea one of her masts snapped with 10 men upon the yards, killing 5. (but, not Captain's Clerk, Isaac Baldwin)
Java was off Algiers in April where Perry went ashore under a flag of truce and persuaded the dey of Algiers to honor the treaty which he had signed the previous summer but had been ignoring. Next she visited Tripoli with Constellation, Ontario, and Brie to show the strength of the United States. Then, after a cruise in the Mediterranean stopping at Syracuse, Messina, Palermo, Tunis, Gibraltar, and Naples, the frigate returned to Newport early in 1817, and was laid up at Boston.
Java returned to active service in 1827 under Captain William M. Crane for a second deployment in the Mediterranean. There she protected American citizens and commerce and performed diplomatic duties. Toward the end of the cruise she served as flagship of Commodore James Biddle.
After returning to the United States in 1831, Java became receiving ship at Norfolk, where she was broken up in 1842.
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Also some information on O.P. Baldwin:
Oliver Perry Baldwin
Birth: ABT. 1811 in New York 1
Death: 17 JUL 1878 in Waverly, Baltimore county, Maryland
ELEC: BET. 21 MAY 1851 - 1854 Vestryman, St. Johns Episcopal Church, Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia
Oliver Perry Baldwin delivered the speech: "Virginia, her past and her future"; An address delivered before the Phoenix Society of William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, February 28, 1852.
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"Oliver Perry Baldwin became a resident of Cleveland in 1836. He pacticed law and edited a paper for two years, then removed to Virginia. He was widely known in the south as an editor and a state senator. He was the (grand)son of Capt. Daniel Baldwin who lost a leg at the battle of the Brandywine. He was the son of Isaac Baldwin who died on the frigate, JAVA in 1816 in the Mediterrenean Sea.
O. P. Baldwin married Eliza Sheffey, daughter of the Hon. Daniel Sheffey, Congressman of Virginia. Oliver Perry died in 1878.
While living in Cleveland he was noted as an eloquent speaker, and was a favorite orator on public occasions.
From: The History of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County webpage as taken from:
The Pioneer Families of CLEVELAND, 1796 - 1840, VOL. I & II, By GERTRUDE VAN RENSSELAER WICKHAM Under the Auspices of The Executive Committee of the Woman's Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission-1896. -http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Cuyahoga/Cleveland502.htm
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In August 1840, C. C. Baldwin relinquished ownership of the newspaper to a new editor: Oliver Perry Baldwin. (Mr. O.P. Baldwin, previous editor of the Cleveland Daily Advertiser in 1835, went on to edit the Lexington Gazette for the next six years until he departed to become part owner and editor of the newly constituted Richmond Daily Republican newspaper.)
From: The History of C.C. Baldwin and Cottage Farm, http://www.glasgowvirginia.org/HistoryofCottageFarm.htmlhttp://www....
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From: The Richmond Daily Dispatch: September 3, 1863
An Atrocious act--On Wednesday night last, about 12 o'clock, Mr. Oliver P. Baldwin, residing at Ashland, Va., was awakened by an oppressive smell of smoke in his room. As soon as possible he hurried out of doors, and discovered a fire progressing under his house just in time to extinguish it before it had gone too far to render the safety of his property possible. A large pile of shavings and other combustibles had been heaped up under the house, immediately at the foot of the stairs leading to his chamber. The match had been applied and the fire had already made some headway; but, with the assistance of his family and the almost superhuman efforts of Mr. B., the flames were subdued without any material damage being done. Some suspicion is entertained as to the one who committed the deed, and it is to be hoped that the guilty one may be arrested and made to suffer the severest penalty of the law.
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From: Valley Virginian, November 28, 1866
Oliver P. Baldwin delivered a lecture at the courthouse on November 20th entitled, "Fighting--considered as one of the Fine Arts." "The most intelligent audience ever gathered together in Staunton pronounced it superior to any lecture ever delivered" by him. He also lectured on "Fast and Slow People," before the Staunton lyceum. (Name in announcement: Oliver P. Baldwin)
From: The New York Times, July 18, 1878, Wednesday, page 5
Mr. Oliver Perry Baldwin, Sr., one of the editors of the Baltimore Sun, died at his residence in Waverly, Baltimore County, Maryland, yesterday morning. Mr. Baldwin has for 40 years been a prominate writer and journalist. He was once the editor of the Lexington (VA) Banner and the Richmond (VA) Dispatch. In politics, he was an Old Line Whig, and was once a member of the Virginia State Senate. He had a wide reputation as a humorus lecturer and writer. His most popular work was The Flush Times in Alabama. His sketch of Southern Statesmen and politicians is one of the most vivid and picturesque books of its kind. He was about 67 years old.
Among the brilliant young lawyers of a half century ago (1850s) was Oliver Perry Baldwin, who came to Cleveland from Virginia. He made his mark as a public speaker upon other matters than those which relate to law. There was a debate once held in the old court house on the subject of temperance, or, in other words, total abstinence, in which Rev. Dr. Nilley, a Baptist clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Boyden, an Episcopal clergyman, and O.P. Baldwin, an attorney, took one side, and the advocates of total abstinence held the other. As to who had the best of the argument, opinions in this, as in all like cases, varied.
Mr Baldwin later took up his residence at Richmond, Virginia and had editorial charge of the Daily Examiner. Since the close of the rebellion, he made a visit to Cleveland and delivered one lecture in the old round church, Wood street, on the subject of "The Battle of Life," which the Herald, under the editorial control of George A Benedict, one of his friends and associates, pronounced not up to the standard of his former efforts in this city.
Marshall, George M. "A Layman's Observations on Ohio Lawyers and the Law." National Magazine: A Monthly Journal of American History.Vol. XII. May, 1890-Oct., 1890.New York, New York. p. 365.
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Baldwin, Oliver Perry, Midshipman, USN
Book - Poems by William Cowper dated 1803. Inscribed and believed to be the property of Isaac Baldwin, Surgeon's Mate, who died aboard the frigate Java in the Mediterranean in 1816. Inscribed by his son Oliver Perry Baldwin, Midshipman, USN, to his son Oliver Perry Baldwin, Jr. in 1864. Also, a journal containing Watch, Quarter and Station Bill, a daily entry in March 1834 entitled Journal of a Cruise in the U.S. Sloop of War Falmouth, and a station bill "Boarders, Pikesmen," broken down by names.
