The discovery and survey project on the Union frigate,
Cumberland, and Confederate raider, Florida. July 1982.
Since we knew where the Florida rested, and had a good
idea on the Cumberland site, I felt it was time for a
professional survey conducted by a team of expert archaeologists.
NUMA then contracted with the four former archaeologists
from the state of Virginia, who dove with us during the
'81 expedition. Sam Margolin, Mike Warner, Dick Swete,
and Jim Knickerbocker made up the Underwater Archaeological
Joint Ventures survey team.
They performed admirably. Rather than comment, I'll simply
let Sam Margolin's article and the report written by Mike
Warner and the others stand alone. After the survey was
completed and the artifacts recovered, John Broadwater
and the State of Virginia Landmarks Department, who had
offered to handle the conservation of the artifacts, backed
out and claimed they had no money. At this point all the
artifacts were in holding tanks inside rented garage space.
Not wishing to see them disintegrate and be trashed,
I worked out a deal with the College of William &
Mary to preserve them. They did a remarkable job and
charged me far less than originally estimated. I then
donated all the artifacts to John Sands, the director
of the Newport News Mariners Museum, which has to be
the finest and largest in the country.
The museum people built a most attractive display for
the viewing public.
Then after about six months, some admiral with the
odd nickname of Beetle something or other and Mike Curtin,
the rotund, heavy jowled curator of the Norfolk Naval
museum marched up to John Sands and demanded he turn
over, as they generously put it, "our artifacts".
Demonstrating arrogance with little grace, they threatened
to go to court in order to claim artifacts whose recovery
they offered no contribution whatsoever.
Displaying a bureaucratic lack of fortitude, Broadwater
and the State caved in. The story is they didn't want
to upset the navy, who was responsible for thousands
of jobs in and around the tidewater basin.
So now the artifacts sit in the Norfolk Naval Museum.
Though the navy thinks they belong to them, the truth
is that all U.S. Naval ships sold for salvage and stricken
from commission belong to the General Services Administration.
What thanks did NUMA and UAJV receive for their efforts
to preserve our country's maritime heritage from a grateful
government?
Ingratitude, rejection and antipathy.
Is it any wonder many of us no longer vote?
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