Return to Naval Historical Center home page. Return to Online Library listing

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 56817: Captain James Barron, USN.  19th Century engraved portrait

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- PEOPLE -- UNITED STATES --

Commodore James Barron, USN, (1769-1851)

James Barron was born in Virginia in 1769. As a youth he served in the Virginia Navy during the last years of the American Revolution and, nearly two decades later in 1798, received a commission as a Lieutenant in the new U.S. Navy. He demonstrated superior seamanship abilities as an officer of the frigate United States, was promoted to Captain and commanded the frigate Warren in 1800-1801, during the final months of the Quasi-War with France. Over the next several years he had Tripolitan War service in the Mediterranean and supervised the construction of a gunboat. In 1807 Barron was assigned to command U.S. Navy forces in the Mediterranean, but on 22 June his flagship, USS Chesapeake, was intercepted, fired upon and captured by a British warship. The American ship had just left port and was unready for action, and the affair produced great resentment in the United States. Commodore Barron was convicted by a court-martial of not having properly prepared his ship and received a five-year suspension from the service.

Barron then began several years of commercial activity and remained so-employed in Europe during the War of 1812. He came back to the U.S. following the end of the conflict and resumed his Navy service. He remained controversial, and his reputation was not enhanced when, in March 1820, he killed the widely-respected Commdore Stephen Decatur in a duel. Though wounded, Barron recovered and went on to have a long career ashore, where his commands included the Philadelphia Navy Yard. When Commodore James Barron died at Norfolk, Virginia, on 21 April 1851, he was the Navy's most senior officer.

This page features the only view we have of Commodore James Barron, USN.


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the "Online Library's" digital images, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 56817

Captain James Barron, U.S. Navy
(1769-1851)

19th Century engraved portrait.

Photograph received from the Commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, 1925. Barron had been a Commandant of that facility.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 212KB; 620 x 765 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the "Online Library's" digital images, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

Page made 22 June 2003