Dunkirk Schooner Site

Dunkirk Schooner Site is a historic shipwreck archaeological site located in Lake Erie off Dunkirk in Chautauqua County, New York. It lies about 20 miles (32 km) off Dunkirk resting in 170 feet (52 m) of cold freshwater, embedded on submerged lands of New York in the eastern basin of Lake Erie. It is a Great Lakes schooner, a two-masted wooden sailing ship, approximately 80 feet (24 m) in length on deck, 19 feet (5.8 m) in beam. It may have been the Caledonia, built on the River Rouge near Detroit in 1799 and originally used in the fur trade in the early 19th century. It was commandeered by the British military at the outbreak of the War of 1812 and then captured by the Americans a year later. It was later sold to Pennsylvania merchants who renamed it the General Wayne and used it as part of the Underground Railroad to ferry runaway slaves to Canada until sinking sometime before 1850. Alternatively, it may be a nameless 1830s schooner that sank carrying grain.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.