On February 16, 1804, Brother Stephen Decatur, Jr. (1779-1820) led a naval expedition into enemy waters that British Admiral Horatio Nelson called "the most daring act of the age." In an effort to curtail piracy in Tripoli Harbor, President Thomas Jefferson had dispatched an expeditionary force to the area. The US Frigate Philadelphia had gone aground, and the enemy captured the vessel. Fearing the pirates would use the frigate against the US as well as using it as a model to build better ships, the president sent Brother Decatur on a mission to destroy it. Decatur disguised himself and his men as Maltese sailors, entered Tripoli Harbor undetected in a small two-mast ship, boarded the Philadelphia, defeated the pirates on board, destroyed the frigate and left without losing a single American. Decatur was initiated October 12, 1799 in St. Johns Lodge, Baltimore.
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