CLAIM
TO HISTORY:
Has explorer
found sunken ship "Griffin" ?
A
sailor's life journeying the five Great Lakes sounds romantic, but
not all the journeys have been smooth sailing. The Great Lakes have
seen their share of shipwrecks over the years. Explorer Robert de
LaSalle's ship, the Griffin, one of the first large ships ever to
sail the Great Lakes, was launched in 1679 and carried a load of
furs out of Green Bay on its maiden voyage. She was never seen again
and no splinter ever washed ashore. The Griffin leads the long parade
of ghost ships that provide us with the great mysteries of the Great
Lakes.
Thursday, July
08, 2004
By Ed White
The Grand Rapids Press
A
Virginia man who for years tried to get permission to search
for gold in northern Lake Michigan said he is back with the
story of another shipwreck, one that could be among the "most significant archaeological
finds" in U.S. history. Steve Libert won't divulge the ship's
identity or the exact location in Lake Michigan. But state archaeologist
John Halsey has an idea, based on the scant details filed in federal
court in Grand Rapids. "There is something sticking out of
the bottom that he thinks is the Griffin," said Halsey, who
has briefly talked to Libert. "I don't think it's possible
to know without more discovery." Historians consider the Griffin
to be the first European trade ship to sail lakes Huron and Michigan.
It was built for French explorer Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle
in 1679 but disappeared that same year, probably in a storm, loaded
with furs and bound for Lake Erie. "I'm not going to say what
it is," said Liber, of Great Lakes Exploration Group, based
in Ohio. "If I did, everyone would jump out of the woodwork.
... They'll find the ship and tear it apart." He may have no
choice but to divulge more. Great Lakes Exploration has filed a
lawsuit seeking to be declared the exclusive owner of the shipwreck.
In the short term, it wants to be named custodian. A judge, however,
rejected that request, for now, saying he needs more information.
Great Lakes Exploration "fails to give any identifying information"
about the ship, aside from disclosing latitude and longitude coordinates
in a large area, U.S. Chief District Judge Robert Holmes Bell said.
Based on the coordinates, the shipwreck is in northern Lake Michigan,
somewhere between Escanaba and the St. Martin Islands, near Wisconsin.
"The vessel was owned by a foreign research expedition operating
with the authority of ... a foreign sovereign until it became wrecked,
lost and abandoned," Great Lakes Exploration said in court
documents.
The group said it has "invested substantial time, money and
effort" finding the ship and researching its history. Libert,
an experienced diver, said he removed a tiny piece to determine
age."It's taken me 30 years to locate this," he said.
"I last saw it two weeks ago. We're not 100 percent sure, but,
so far, all the scientific data is supporting what we think it is."
Halsey has seen only "grainy" underwater videotape. He
said he wants the state's maritime archaeologist to go to the site.
"You don't have to have a doctorate degree to know how many
vessels were under a foreign sovereign on the Great Lakes,"
Halsey said. "If it turned out to be the Griffin, it would
be the pre-eminent vessel in the Great Lakes. "But you don't
know what's left; sometimes there are just bits and pieces,"
he said. "Where exactly it was lost is also a real mystery.
Back then, you didn't have a whole lot of people watching for it." And
even if it is the Griffin, Libert's group still would have a difficult
time gaining control, Halsey predicted.
Michigan typically has authority over abandoned ships on the bottom
of the Great Lakes. But the French government could trump everyone
if this is the Griffin, he said."Unless the French give their
blessing, it can't be salvaged," Halsey said.
La Salle's other ship, La Belle, was discovered in the mid-1990s
in Matagorda Bay off the Texas coast. With approval from France,
state archaeologists there recovered nearly 1 million artefacts,
from human bones to muskets. This is not Libert's first visit to
federal court. He and partners spent years trying to salvage rights
to the Captain Lawrence, a ship ravaged by storm off the Upper
Peninsula in 1933. They believed it went down just after the skipper
recovered a chest of gold dating back to the War of 1812. The
state, however, said the ship was abandoned by its owner and must
remain untouched. Federal courts agreed.
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