The vessel
Show on the chart- Type
- Barge
- Also known as
- Originally built as the steamer Equator, engines removed 1871
- Built
- 1857
- Size
- 189' x 32' x 11'
- Gross tonnage
- 489
- Owner
- L.L. Slyfield of St. Clair, Michigan
- Date lost
- Saturday, November 20, 1880
- Cause of loss
- Storm. Swayze places the loss just east of the harbour entrance at Erie. She was one of at least three vessels lost in the Erie area that same day.
- Lives lost
- 0
- Registry
- Official number 135117. PHMC PASS number 36ER0333.
- PHMC site number
- 36ER0333 ( http://www.phmc.pa.gov/Preservation/ )
Position 42.17359, -80.01484 (as charted by RSC, from the Regional Science Consortium shipwreck map)
Recorded location: 42.17359, -80.01483, 77 Degrees T 2.3 miles off Erie, Pa., just east of Four Mile Creek
The short version
Eldorado began life in 1857 as the steamer Equator, built at Buffalo. Her engines were removed in 1871 and she was renamed Eldorado, spending her remaining years as an unpowered barge in tow. At the time of her loss she was owned by L.L. Slyfield of St. Clair, Michigan. She was lost in a storm on 20 November 1880 near the entrance to Erie harbour, on a day that claimed several other vessels in the same waters, and Swayze records that she was carrying no cargo. All seven aboard survived.