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First Ship to See the Grosse Pointes, The Griffin

In 1679, everything changed when The Griffin came to our waters for the first time.

The Griffin (Le Griffon), was the double-mast ship that carried the first explorers to Lake St. Clair. Aboard were several notable individuals to our region's history: Father Hennepin, Franciscan priest and cartographer, and the French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.        

Construction     

Although The Griffin was the first ship to see the waters surrounding Michigan, it was not the first ship on the Great Lakes. It was built to replace the ship Frontenac, which sunk in Lake Ontario on Jan. 8, 1679. The site for construction of The Griffin was in the area of the Cayuga Creek which is just west of Niagara Falls at the eastern most part of Lake Erie near present-day Buffalo, New York.

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According to Francis Parkman in his writing, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great Lakes, construction of The Griffin began in late January 1679. “Trees were felled, the place cleared, and the master-carpenter set his ship-builders at work.  Meanwhile, two Mohegan hunters, attached to the party, made bark wigwams to lodge the men.”

Parkman continues to explain how The Griffin was built, further noting that the ship did not take very long to build, no more than approximately three months. He was also one of the first historians to write a monograph documenting the explorations of La Salle and noted that the Native Americans took a keen and even jealous interest in the process. “The work of the ship-builders advanced rapidly; and when the Indian visitors beheld the vast ribs of the wooden monster, their jealousy was redoubled.”

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The ship itself was a large vessel. Hennepin estimated the weight of The Griffin to be about 45 tons but other revised estimates have the ship weighing up to 60 tons, according to The Michigan Pioneer. When the ship was finally ready for the water, Parkman describes the scene like a riotous party, “As spring opened, she was ready for launching. The friar pronounced his blessing on her; the assembled sang Te Deum; cannon were fired; and French and Indians, warmed alike by a generous gift of brandy, shouted and yelped in chorus as she glided into the Niagara.” 

A firsthand account

According to Hennipen himself in his volume entitled, "A discovery of a new country greater than europe; situated in America betwixt New-Mexico and the Frozen-Sea" writes of his accounts of our region. This essay was first published in A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, Volume 1  but it can also be found republished in the Tonnancour series as well as the Wisconsin Historical Society Journal.

Hennipen describes our area and our lake, as compared with the other Great Lakes as "far less great than any of the rest, which is of a circular form about six leagues over, according to the observation of our pilot." Despite its size, small in stature,  Hennipen describes the shoreline of what is present-day Detroit, the Grosse Pointes and St. Clair shores favorably. "The country that borders upon this most agreeable and charming streight, is a pleasant champagne country ..."

Namesake and legacy

The ship held five cannons and on the bow of the ship rested a large carving of the mythical monstrous bird, the griffon, which in Greek means, “gryphon,” a legendary animal with the body of a lion and head of an eagle. The ship was named, as Parkman states, “in honor of the armorial bearings of Frontenac.” Shortly after the ship was constructed, La Salle, Hennepin and the rest of the party began travelling westward through Lake Erie. By late summer they had traveled north through what is now the Detroit River, and in August they reached the open waters of Lake St. Clair.   

Hennepin named the lake after Saint Clare of Assisi (of which her name has been spelled other ways over the years, including Claire and Clair), because her feast day at that time fell on Aug. 12, the day in which their party of explorers first traversed the waters.

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