Name of Vessel:

Lyon

Master of Vessel:

Commander Timothy Shaler

Rig of Vessel:

Sloop

Date of Capture:

19 April 1777

Place of Capture:

Off Egg Harbor, New Jersey

Captor:

HM Frigate Mermaid

Home Port:

[New London], Connecticut

From What Port:

To What Port:

Cargo:

Tonnage:

95

Battery:

8x4

Crew:

80 [nominal]

Owners:

Humphrey Lyon & Co. of East Haddam, Connecticut

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

Into What Port:

Date Arrived:

Date Tried:

[driven ashore]

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: The 95-ton Connecticut Privateer Sloop Lyon was commissioned on 27 November 1776 under Commander Timothy Shaler of Hartford, Connecticut. She was armed with eight 4-pounders and had a nominal crew of eighty men. She was operating off the entrance to New York in the early spring of 1777. About 17 or 18 April 1777, Lyon captured the Experiment, a British store ship bound from Cork, Ireland to New York, with a cargo of coal, off Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The Hazard, bound from Cork to New York, was captured and brought in to Egg Harbor, New Jersey. On 19 April HM Frigate Mermaid appeared off Egg Harbor. Mermaid re-captured the Experiment, and claimed credit for re-capturing the Hazard, although she was driven ashore and destroyed. Mermaid also claimed credit for the Lyon, which she ran ashore near Egg Harbor. On 3 July 1777 and advertisement appeared in the Philadelphia newspaper for the sale (on 9 July) of the “remains” of the privateer sloop “Lion,” which then lay on Long Beach near Egg Harbor. She was said to be 95 tons, armed with eight 4-pounders.

[NRAR, 380; NDAR, VIII, 486-487 and 487 note, 1053-1063; IX, 179 and note; X, 589-590]