''Maple Leaf'' is a United States

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, United States. ''Maple Leaf'', a side paddlewheel steamship, was first launched as a freight and passenger vessel from the Marine Railway Yard in Kingston, Upper Canada in 1851. The sidewheel

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses we ...

measured at the beam.

Sinking

''Maple Leaf'' was a civilian merchant steamship, chartered as a transport by the Union Army during

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, that struck a

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

torpedo - what we would now call a

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

- as she was crossing the St. Johns River near Jacksonville on April 1, 1864. Four crew members lost their lives in the sinking. This was the first mine casualty of the war. The

screw steamer A screw steamer or screw steamship is an old term for a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine, using one or more propellers (also known as ''screws'') to propel it through the water. Such a ship was also known as an "iron screw steam shi ...

was dispatched to assess the condition of the wreck on April 2, and Captain Henry W. Dale concluded his ship and cargo as a

total loss In insurance claims, a total loss or write-off is a situation where the lost value, repair cost or salvage cost of a damaged property exceeds its insured value, and simply replacing the old property with a new equivalent is more cost-effect ...

Wreck

''Maple Leaf''′s wreck site is located in the St. Johns River, to the west of the adjacent Mandarin neighborhood, in southeastern Duval County. The wreck was deemed a threat to river navigation so the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

had all structural components above the ship's main deck removed to clear the channel in the 1880s. The shipwreck was rediscovered by the St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc. in 1984. Volunteers identified the wreck in 1984. The shipwreck site has been given the Smithsonial trinomial 8DU8032. Because of the wreck's remarkable state of preservation (down to the line cleared in the 1880s), it is the most significant Civil War-era shipwrecks yet discovered, and a good example of a mid-19th century Great Lakes steamer. On October 12, 1994, it was designated a

References

External links

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck Site)
a
Florida's Shipwrecks: 300 Years of Maritime History - A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary

Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs
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Duval County markers
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Maple Leaf

Maple Leaf Shipwreck
{{National Register of Historic Places in Florida 1851 ships Ships built in Ontario National Register of Historic Places in Duval County, Florida Shipwrecks in rivers Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in Florida Shipwrecks of the American Civil War Ships sunk by mines Maritime incidents in April 1864 National Historic Landmarks in Florida

Sinking

Wreck

See also

References

External links