Thomas Macdonough, Jr. was born in Newcastle County, Delaware, United States on December 30, 1783. He was the son of a revolutionary officer, Thomas Macdonough, Sr. who lived near Middletown, Delaware. He was the sixth child from a family of ten siblings and was raised in the countryside.
At the age of 16, he entered the navy (1800) as a midshipman on the Philadelphia under Commander Edward Preble. Macdonough avoided imprisonment when the Philadelphia was captured by the Tripolitans and aided Commander Stephen Decatur of the Enterprise in the rescue of the Philadelphia crew from the burning of the ship in 1804.
He was promoted to lieutenant on May 18 of that year for his bravery. He was first lieutenant on the Enterprise, and later held the same rank on the Siren. Macdonough was furloughed in May 1810, and took a merchant ship to England, but after the declaration of war against Great Britain on June 18, 1812, he was recalled as a first lieutenant on the Constellation. He was then ordered to service on Lake Champlain. He was commissioned master commandant in July 1813, and commanded the ships Saratoga (flagship), Eagle, Ticonderoga, and Preble in the defeat of the British fleet at Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, September 11, 1814. This American victory helped conclude the War of 1812.
On November 30, 1814, Macdonough was commissioned a captain, and in 1815 became commander of the Portsmouth, N. H. , navy yard. He sailed as commander of the Guerrièree in 1818, and in 1824 assumed command of the Constitution ("Old Ironsides"). Forced by ill health to resign, he died at sea.
Macdonough married Lucy Anne Shaler on December 12, 1812, at the Christ Church in Middletown by Bishop Abraham Jarvis.
