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Drawing by Marion Pahl 



J_ he first ship of record to sail on 

 Lake Michigan was La Salle's trading 

 vessel, the Griffin. In August of 1679 

 this vessel sailed from the east end of 

 Lake Erie to St. Ignace on the north- 

 west side of Lake Huron and then across 

 northern Lake Michigan to one of the 

 islands lying at the opening into Green 

 Bay. In September of 1679 the Griffin 

 sailed from the Green Bay island and 

 disappeared, never again to be seen by 

 her French owners. 



The Griffin usually is depicted as a 

 large three-masted ship, the typical man- 

 of-war and freighter of the seventeenth 



century. On the Franquelin map of 

 1688, such a ship shown in Lake Mich- 

 igan and also in Lake Huron is proba- 

 bly meant to represent the Griffin. Many 

 museum exhibits and many book illus- 

 trations also portray the Griffin as a large 

 seventeenth century freighter with three 

 masts and elaborate rigging. I intend 

 to show that La Salle's vessel was a 

 much more modest boat and not at all 

 like the magnificent freighters or men-of- 

 war that usually have been the bases for 

 pictorial reconstructions of the Griffin. 



Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollet 



missionary, witnessed the building of the 

 Griffin and was a passenger on the vessel 

 during her voyage. He kept a journal 

 and his written statements are the pri- 

 mary historical source of information 

 about the ship and its voyage. How- 

 ever, Hennepin's account is so incom- 

 plete that one does not know what kind 

 of vessel the Griffin was or where she 

 actually went in Lake Michigan. I pro- 

 pose to remedy this lack by making an 

 historical reconstruction of the ship and 

 her voyage. 1 



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