Qualla: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck)

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck): Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Somewhere beneath the muddy waters of the St. Johns River, just west of Jacksonville's Mandarin neighborhood, a steamship has been keeping secrets since 1864. The Maple Leaf went down in minutes after striking a Confederate torpedo on April 1 of that year, carrying with her the personal belongings of three Union infantry regiments. For 120 years, seven feet of river mud sealed those possessions in an airless tomb so effective that when divers finally reached the cargo holds in the 1980s, they found leather still supple, cloth still intact, and letters still legible. The wreck produced the largest single collection of Civil War artifacts in the world.

Read more: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck) on Qualla

Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck): From the Great Lakes to War

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Maple Leaf began life far from any battlefield. Launched in 1851 from the Marine Railway Yard in Kingston, Upper Canada, the 181-foot side paddlewheel steamship was built as a freight and passenger vessel for the Great Lakes trade. She was a sturdy workhorse of the inland wat...

Read more: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck) on Qualla

Image: Michael Rivera | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck): Sixty Seconds in the Dark

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The night of April 1, 1864, brought no warning. The Maple Leaf was steaming up the St. Johns River near Mandarin Point when her bow struck a Confederate torpedo, a barrel-sized device with tapered wooden points that floated just below the surface. The explosion ripped through the...

Read more: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck) on Qualla

Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck): The River's Time Capsule

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The St. Johns River did what no museum could have done. Silt quickly buried the wreck, and the anaerobic environment beneath the mud preserved organic materials that would have decayed anywhere else. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleared the shipping channel in the 1880s,...

Read more: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck) on Qualla

Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maple Leaf (Shipwreck): Landmark Under the Current

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Romeo murrey, CC BY-SA 4.0. On October 12, 1994, the Maple Leaf wreck site was designated a National Historic Landmark, the first historic site to receive that distinction in all of Duval County. The designation recognized not only the remarkable preservation of the vessel but also its significance as a mid...

Read more: Maple Leaf (Shipwreck) on Qualla

Image: Romeo murrey | CC BY-SA 4.0