ivil War plaque finally rising
It was found after 11 years in a city office
By DAN SCANLAN
A bronze National Historic Landmark plaque commemorating the sinking of the Union steamship Maple Leaf off Mandarin Point 141 years ago will finally be erected by a nonprofit Jacksonville group dedicated to preserving Southern heritage after languishing in a city office for 11 years.
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Tim Burris (left) and Calvin Hart do some final touch-up paint work on a bronze plaque commemorating 1864 wreck of the Union ship Maple Leaf off Mandarin.
DAN SCANLAN/The Times-Union
The Kirby Smith Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans received city permission to plant the plaque along the St. Johns River near the Jacksonville Landing. Joining it on a green aluminum pole describing the Civil War sinking will be a historic marker that had sat in a city warehouse on aptly named Confederate Street since 2002.
After reading about the dormant plaque and marker in April, the group made up of descendants of the Confederacy called city officials to kick-start the installation. After repairs and some new paint, the two should be planted behind the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts soon, said Calvin Hart, the chapter’s adjutant.
“This is the kind of stuff we are involved in — Confederate heritage, cleaning up Confederate graveyards,” Hart said after finishing the green paint touch-up Aug. 7.
“It is a historic event that took place in Jacksonville. There are not enough historic markers in Jacksonville as it is, and to leave one in a warehouse downtown just seemed ridiculous,” he said. “No one else was doing it, and we were concerned. I looked at it and said, ‘We can do it,’ and we did.”
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A National Historic Landmark marker describing the Civil War sinking of the Union steamship Maple Leaf and a plaque declaring in a landmark.
DAN SCANLAN/The Times-Union
Amateur archaeologist and Southside dentist Keith Holland, who led the expedition that discovered the ship and recovered artifacts now on display, only learned the whereabouts of the plaque and marker in April after months of searching. He was almost speechless when he learned Tuesday that the nonprofit veterans group would complete the task.
“I will have to write them a personal thank you,” Holland said. “I can’t wait to see it, and they have done a great service to the city and the country. It is a national historic landmark and needs recognition.”
“It’s long overdue,” added Jim Towart, the Maple Leaf recovery team’s historian.
The 181-foot-long Maple Leaf hit a torpedo mine laid in the river near Mandarin Point by Confederate soldiers early April 1, 1864. Four died, but 58 others survived as the ship sank with 400 tons of supplies and personal items from three Union regiments on board.
Discovered in 1984 under 27 feet of water and mud, Holland and the St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions team recovered thousands of artifacts between 1988 and 1994.
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The Sons of Confederate Veterans, Kirby Smith Camp No. 1209, will install this historic marker soon on Lenox Avenue to mark the site of the March 1, 1864, skirmish at Cedar Creek.
DAN SCANLAN/The Times-Union
The National Park Service presented the city with a bronze plaque declaring the wreck a National Historic Landmark during a 1994 ceremony, and Holland paid for another displayed at the Mandarin Historical Museum at 11964 Mandarin Road. But the first plaque’s voyage to an approved site near the Jacksonville Landing got dry-docked because of the cost of a granite marker and other matters, so it and a marker purchased by the city in 2002 languished uninstalled until city historic planner Joel McEachin found them again in April.
Hart read a Florida Times-Union story on the discovery, and his veteran’s group asked city officials if they could continue the signs’ delayed voyage. The group is familiar with historic markers because it just cast another for placement on Lenox Avenue and Cedar Creek to commemorate a March 1, 1864, skirmish between Union and Confederate troops.
City officials and the Jacksonville Historical Society agreed to let them take over if a line on the plaque stating 400 “pounds” of supplies went down with the ship was corrected to read “tons.” Jacksonville Historical Society Executive Director Emily Lisska acquired new metal letters and a friend of Hart’s shaved off the “pounds” and fixed it.
No date has been set for the marker and plaque’s erection.
Plaque found to remember sunken ship
Confederate Veterans plant it along Riverwalk
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The plaque and historic marker stand like lone sentinels on the banks of the St. Johns River next to the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts downtown
The Times-Union
By DAN SCANLAN, The Times-Union