Both Webster and Todd derive this word from the German schoner, which means the same; but on examining the German dictionaries we find the word written schooner, schoner, and schuner, and characterized as English. The following story has a circumstantiality about it that gives it an air of truth:
"The first vessel of the kind is said to have been built at Gloucester, Mass., by Capt. Andrew Robinson, about the year 1714. The name was given to it from the following circumstance: Capt. R. had constructed a vessel, which he masted and rigged in the manner that schooners now are, and on her going off the stocks into the water, a bystander cried out, 'Oh how she schoons!' R. instantly replied, 'A schooner let her be;' and from that time, this class of vessels has gone by that name. Previously, vessels of this description were unknown either in this country or Europe."--Essex, Mass. Memorial, 1836, p. 100.
What is meant by to schoon, I cannot say.