LE GRIFFON

Built by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, '''Le Griffon''' is considered to have been the first full-sized sailing ship on the upper Great Lakes of North America. The ship was launched in Cayuga Creek as a forty-five ton Barque with five guns. It measured 20 m overall. On its maiden voyage beginning on August 7, 1679, it was sailed across Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan with a crew of 34. On its return trip from Green Bay, Wisconsin, it vanished with all six crew members and a load of furs.
A number of sunken old sailing ships have been suggested to be ''Le Griffon'' but, except for the ones proven to be other ships, there has been no positive identification. One candidate is a wreck at the western end of Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, with another wreck near Escanaba, Michigan, also proposed. The Griffon was the second in a string of thousands of ships that have found their last berth on the bottom of the Great Lakes.
''Le Griffon'' is mistakenly called the first ship to be lost to the Great Lakes. The first ship was another built by La Salle, called the ''Frontenac'', a 10-ton single-decked brigantine or barque. The ''Frontenac'' was lost in Lake Ontario, on January 8, 1679.

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See also

References

External links

See also

★ SS Edmund Fitzgerald

References

★ Shipwreck Tales of the GreatLakes, Kohl, Cris, , , Seawolf Communications, Inc, 2004, ISBN 0-9679976-7-4

External links

★ The Search for the Elusive Griffon