Friday, September 19, 1986
Maple Leaf salvage agreement sign of responsive government
    If someday, Civil War artifacts from the steamship Maple Leaf grace a maritime museum in Jacksonville, they would be more than reminders of a time in history. They would symbolize what some would say is even rarer - federal government flexibility. That vast amorphous bureaucracy is made up of people. And when they have the leeway to make decisions, then you see in operation the mind and the heart, instead of the dry rigidity of bureaucratic rules on paper.

    The first reaction of the federal agencies involved was negative to the request to salvage the wreckage that lies off Mandarin Point in the St. Johns River under more than 20 feet of water so dark and silt so dense that sunlight does not penetrate.

    Despite the fact that the wreckage had been abandoned so thoroughly by the federal government that it hasn't even been marked on navigation charts during this century, the government asserted its rights to what remained.

    A Jacksonville group wanted to clear the legal air before proceeding into the enormously expensive and difficult work of trying to bring up from the mud of the river bottom some 800,000 pounds of equipage that the vessel was carrying from Palatka to Jacksonville when it struck a Confederate mine.

    The ship was sunk on April 1, 1864, a crucial time in Florida's Civil War experience. It was just six weeks after the Federal defeat at Olustee and movements through the area of troops and sympathizers on both sides were frequent.

    Holland and his associates have hope that documents, diaries and such will have been preserved by the mud and be readable. They have reason to think so from similar salvage efforts in the Mississippi River.

    Although the federal government seemed adamant at first, it agreed to negotiate as a hearing date for the court case approached and the result was a stipulation agreeable to both parties and signed by U.S. District Judge John H. Moore II this week.

    It is strange that the working out of the salvage of the wreckage of a Canadian-built vessel sunk during one of bloodiest wars in world history, a war that nearly shattered the fragile union of the American states, should act as a testimonial to the enduring value of a government by the people. It is strange, but it is true.