AH-WR-0635

Widgeon

Centerboard Schooner · United States · Lost Abandoned or sunk sometime between 1939 and 1952, based on comparison of aerial photographs · Chesapeake Bay

A Chesapeake workboat first mistaken for a War of 1812 gunboat, later identified by archaeologists as the centerboard schooner Widgeon.

Become Captain of Record See Shipwreck on Map

Artistic recreation based on recorded historical documents. See the documented evidence.

Interpretive Reconstruction, drawn to convey the vessel's era, type and general form. See the documented evidence.

The Vessel and Her Loss

The wreck in Grover's Creek Cove on St. Leonard's Creek was long suspected to be one of the gunboats scuttled by Commodore Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Flotilla in 1814. Archaeological testing in 1997 by East Carolina University found a single two-masted, centerboard, plank-on-frame vessel rather than the suspected War of 1812 gunboats. Recovered rigging and construction details dated her to well after 1840, and by 1999 researchers had identified her as the Chesapeake Bay workboat Widgeon. Aerial photographs show she was present in the 1930s but gone by the early 1950s, indicating she sank or was abandoned in that window.

Vessel

Built: Not established
Builder: Not established
Yard: Not established
Material: Wood
Length: 60 ft
Beam: 20 ft
Tonnage: Not established
Propulsion: Sail, two-masted, centerboard
Owners: Not established

Loss

Date: Abandoned or sunk sometime between 1939 and 1952, based on comparison of aerial photographs
Cause: Not established
Location: Grover's Creek Cove, St. Leonard's Creek, Calvert County, Maryland
Water: St. Leonard's Creek, a tributary of the Patuxent River, Chesapeake Bay watershed
Voyage: Not established
Cargo: Not established
Aboard: Not established
Lives lost: Not established
Master: Not established

The Wreck Today

Depth: Not established
Condition: Remains extend 60 feet between stem and stern posts and 20 feet in beam at the chine; two-masted, centerboard, plank-on-frame construction with wire rigging fragments recovered.
Orientation: Not established
Discovered: 1997 (Phase II archaeological testing); identity confirmed 1999
Protection: Not established

Position

Coordinates: 38.39° N 76.50° W
Accuracy: General area only
Nearest: St. Leonard's Creek, Calvert County, Maryland
Region: Chesapeake Bay

General area only: coordinate of St. Leonard Creek from the USGS Geographic Names Information System, marking the named tributary of loss recorded for this vessel (Grover's Creek Cove is not separately listed in the gazetteer), not a surveyed wreck position.