On its second voyage, the wooden ship Griffon sank and sparked a mystery that has spanned centuries.
Built in 1679 north of Niagara, the 60-foot-long, 16-foot-wide ship was dispatched to Green Bay to load a rich cargo of furs. The largest cargo on the largest ship to ever sail the upper Great Lakes — in fact, the first European vessel to do so — vanished shortly after sailing. The disappearance launched a quest that has captivated countless historians, archeologists, divers and amateurs across the ages.
Steve Libert is one of those bewitched by the French ship Le Griffon and he has spent 30 years searching for clues both above and below the waves.
A senior intelligence analyst with the federal government who lives in the northern Virginia area, Libert discussed his odyssey Saturday evening at the Grand Traverse Heritage Center. His talk was part of the center's "Mysteries of the Lake: Lake Michigan Legends and Lore” exhibit, which runs through December 1. The event drew 125 people and also featured short presentations by Ken Vrana, president of the Center for Maritime and Underwater Resource Management and Richard Gross, a historical researcher from Schaumburg, Ill..
Bottom line: Libert believes that in 2001 he located the Griffon in Michigan waters off of the coast of Wisconsin.
"I've been looking into the Griffon for 30 years and it's been a long road and a lot of hardships, I've lost a lot of money and been in a lot of danger,” he said.
Although further exploration, documentation, confirmation and preservation of this promising wreck are tied up until the resolution of a federal court case with the state of Michigan, Libert shared what he has learned so far.
The legendary French explorer Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle built the Griffon. La Salle envisioned that the Griffon's cargoes of furs would finance his explorations down the Mississippi River as he sought the river's end. The actions of La Salle, who eventually claimed the land west of the Mississippi that later comprised President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, are intricately tied to United States and Great Lakes history.
Unraveling this mystery, Libert believes, will only deepen our understanding of the country's founding plus the purchase and development of land that comprises two-thirds of the land mass today.
"I'm not a treasure hunter, I'm a historical shipwreck hunter,” said Libert.
Gathering a team of like-minded people into the Great Lakes Exploration Group, LLC, of which he is the president, Libert has spent years sifting through historical documents, reading first-hand accounts of the ship's maiden voyage to Wisconsin and exploring miles of lake bottom in his quest. Six years ago, the team finally located what may be the bowsprit of the Griffon and other wreckage but has not explored further until the legal issues are settled.
"I narrowed it down to a few square miles but it still took 14 years to find the vessel,” said Libert, who became entranced by the Griffon story when he was in eighth grade. "There have been about 52 discoveries of the Griffon and about 90 percent of them have been in Lake Huron.”
The Huron Islands clue led those other explorers to the Great Lake of the same name but Libert looked at old charts and a journal wrote by Father Hennepin, who sailed on the maiden voyage. The information in these documents led him to western Lake Michigan and the area where he eventually found the promising artifacts.
"How historians missed it, I have no idea,” said Libert. "That was probably one of the most significant factors for me looking where we did.”
For more information on the Griffon project, see the web site www.lasalle-griffon.org.