American scientists discovered the ruins of the USS Revenue Bear in Canadian waters beneath the Atlantic Ocean, Live Science reports.
Purchased by the US government in the 1880s, the steam and sail-powered ship was used for rescue work in the Arctic.
It also carried relief supplies during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919, and was a film set for a Hollywood movie.
During World War II, the Revenue Bear was upgraded by the US Coastguard for Arctic patrols.
In 1941 it helped capture the Nazi-controlled trawler Buskø, a Norwegian vessel used by German intelligence experts to gather weather reports.
The Revenue Bear was decommissioned in 1944 and tied up at a wharf in Nova Scotia. Then in 1963 after a storm, it sank somewhere south of Nova Scotia and east of Boston.
In 2019, scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started scanning the seafloor near the Revenue Bear's likely resting place.
Then last month, remote submersible vehicles equipped with videography equipment discovered the location of the wreck.
"The Bear has had such an incredible history, and it's so important in many ways in American and global maritime heritage because of its travels," Brad Barr, from the NOAA Maritime Heritage Program, said.
The badly damaged wreck now lies at a depth of 60m in Canadian waters about 167km south of Nova Scotia's Cape Sable.
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The precise location is being kept secret to deter divers from attempting to reach it, Mr Barr said.