The Seneca Chief, a shipwreck located at the bottom of Canandaigua Lake in Ontario County, has been nominated for state and national Registers of Historic Places.
First discovered in 2014, the steam yacht was built by David Bell and launched by the Canandaigua Lake Steamboat Company in 1887. According to the New York state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, it was used mostly for excursion trips and commercial and agricultural industries.
More: Scuba diver gets to the bottom of a mystery on Canandaigua Lake
The Seneca Chief was utilized on Canandaigua Lake for nearly 10 years before being towed into the lake and sunk. Now, the Seneca Chief Shipwreck is one of the 24 properties and districts in New York state that have been nominated by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation and the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer.
Other local nominations include a grain elevator in Buffalo, industrial buildings in Schenectady and a crafts colony historic district in the Hudson Valley.
The state and national Registers of Historic Places are the official registers of significant historical sites and structures around the country. According to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, more than 126,000 historic New York sites and properties are listed on the national register.
The state office’s preservation commissioner pro tempore, Randy Simons, said that these new additions to the national registers, if admitted, will be eligible for historic preservation programs and incentives.
More: Canandaigua Lake shipwrecks: Inside the effort to preserve these mysteries of the deep
— Madison Scott is a journalist with the Democrat and Chronicle who edited our Weld Street Project and also did reporting for it. She has an interest in how the system helps or doesn’t help families with missing loved ones. She can be reached at MDScott@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Canandaigua Lake shipwreck among NY sites nominated for preservation
