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Le Griffon

 
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Le Griffon
 
 
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Built by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Le Griffon is considered to have been the first full-sized sailing ship
Sailing ship

Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a full rigged ship of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant....
 on the upper Great Lakes of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
.






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Building Le Griffon
Le Griffon
Built by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Le Griffon is considered to have been the first full-sized sailing ship
Sailing ship

Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a full rigged ship of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant....
 on the upper Great Lakes of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. The ship was constructed and launched on Cayuga Creek (at Cayuga Island
Cayuga Island

Cayuga Island is a small island in the Niagara River, in Niagara County, N.Y., a few miles upstream of the Niagara Falls.Cayuga Creek empties into the river on the north side of the island....
) as a forty-five ton barque
Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel....
 with five to seven cannons. It measured 20 m (60 feet) overall. Accompanying La Salle on this voyage was Father Louis Hennepin
Louis Hennepin

Father Louis Hennepin, O.F.M. baptized Antoine, was a Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Recollets and an explorer of the interior of North America....
. On its maiden voyage
Maiden Voyage

For the other meaning, see Maiden voyageMaiden Voyage is the fifth album led by jazz musician Herbie Hancock, and was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in 1965 for Blue Note Records....
 beginning on August 7, 1679, it was sailed across Lake Erie
Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time....
, Lake Huron
Lake Huron

Lake Huron, bounded on the west by the U.S. state of Michigan, and on the east by the Provinces and territories of Canada of Ontario, Canada, is one of the five Great Lakes of North America....
 and Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States. The third-largest of the Great Lakes, it is bounded, from west to east, by the U.S....
 with a crew of 34. La Salle disembarked and on September 18, 1679 sent the ship back toward Niagara. On its return trip from Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, Wisconsin in the U.S. state of Wisconsin.The city is located at the head of its namesake Green Bay , a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River ....
, 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
Manitoulin Island

Manitoulin Island is a Canadian island in Lake Huron, in the province of Ontario. It is the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world....
 in Lake Huron, with another wreck near Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba, Michigan

Escanaba [es-ka-NAH-ba] is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, located in the banana belt on the state's Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As of the United States Census, 2000, the city population was 13,140....
, 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
Brigantine

In sailing, a brigantine is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.Originally the brigantine was a small ship carrying both oars and sails....
 or barque. The Frontenac was lost in Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. The lake is bounded on the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south by Ontario's Niagara Peninsula and by the U.S....
, on January 8, 1679.

Le Griffon may have been found recently by the but the potential remains are the subject of lawsuits involving the discoverers, the state of Michigan, the U.S. federal government and the government of France.

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