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Dunkirk Schooner Site

New York waters

  • Cause unknown
  • Lives lost: Unknown
  • Location withheld

This site's location is withheld. The National Register listing is 'Address Restricted'. Position withheld; general area only. This page shows the general area only.

Some 20 miles off Dunkirk, New York, an early two-masted schooner lies in about 170 feet of cold water, and no one has proved which ship she is. The wreck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, and its location is officially restricted.

The story

The Dunkirk Schooner Site is the wreck of a two-masted wooden Great Lakes schooner, about 80 feet long on deck and 19 feet in beam, lying about 20 miles off Dunkirk in Chautauqua County, New York. She rests in some 170 feet of water on submerged lands belonging to New York, in the deep eastern basin of the lake.[1]

She was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The listing recognizes her for engineering and for her potential to yield information, under the themes of maritime history and non-aboriginal history, with periods of significance from 1825 to 1874; it names 1829 and 1860 as significant years. The listing's address is restricted.[2]

Her identity is still open. One theory, reported by Wikipedia, is that she is the Caledonia, built on the River Rouge near Detroit in 1799 for the fur trade. Seized by the British at the start of the War of 1812 and captured by the Americans a year later, that vessel was later sold to Pennsylvania merchants, renamed General Wayne and, by this account, used to carry freedom seekers to Canada on the Underground Railroad before sinking sometime before 1850. The other theory holds that she is an unnamed schooner of the 1830s that went down with a cargo of grain.[1]

Wikipedia's list of Lake Erie shipwrecks describes her simply as an early, unidentified schooner off Dunkirk.[3] Because the National Register keeps the location confidential, this page gives only the general area, and the wreck is treated here as a protected archaeological site.[2]

Sources differ: The National Register record lists 1829 and 1860 as significant years.

Lives lost: Unknown.

Questions people ask

What ship is the Dunkirk Schooner?

No one knows for sure. Wikipedia reports two theories: that she is the Caledonia of 1799, later the General Wayne, or an unnamed grain schooner of the 1830s.

Where is the Dunkirk Schooner Site?

About 20 miles off Dunkirk, New York, in some 170 feet of water. Its National Register listing is address-restricted, so no position is published here.

Learn more

Museums and groups are linked for further reading; they are not connected with this site.

Look, don't take

Look, don't take. Shipwrecks and everything on them are protected by law; removing or disturbing anything can be a crime.

  • United States: under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act (43 U.S.C. § 2105) the U.S. claims title to abandoned shipwrecks embedded in a state's submerged lands, or resting on them and eligible for the National Register, and transfers that title to the state.[4][5][6]
  • New York: Education Law § 233 makes it a class A misdemeanor to investigate, excavate, remove, injure or destroy objects of historical or archaeological interest on, in or under state-owned lands without the written permission of the Commissioner of Education.[7][4]

How Lake Erie wrecks are protected

Diving Lake Erie wrecks is dangerous: cold water, poor visibility, depth, entanglement and boat traffic. Nothing here is dive guidance or a dive position. Dive only with proper training, a qualified operator and current information from the groups that maintain moorings.

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Nearby shipwrecks

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Sources

  1. Dunkirk Schooner Site, Wikipedia. Accessed .
  2. National Register of Historic Places record 09000285: Dunkirk Schooner Site, U.S. National Park Service (NPGallery). Accessed .
  3. List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  4. 43 U.S. Code 2105 - Rights of access (Abandoned Shipwreck Act: title to abandoned shipwrecks), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  5. 43 U.S. Code 2101 - Findings (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  6. 43 U.S. Code 2102 - Definitions (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  7. law-ny-edn-233, nysenate.gov. Accessed .

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