On This Day, August 7, in 1679, Le Griffon was launched in Cayuga Creek and towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River. It was the first brigantine ship to sail the upper Great Lakes in North America. Her maiden voyage began On This Day and she sailed across Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan with a crew of 34, led by the ship’s builder, Robert de LaSalle (Buffalo’s La Salle Park).
Le Griffon loaded up its galleys with furs in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and headed back home. Somewhere on its return trip, she vanished with six crew members. The wreck could be anywhere from Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, or another similar type wreck near Escanaba, Michigan.
Historian James Hosner wrote of LaSalle: “For all the qualities of rugged manhood, courage, persistency that could not be broken, contempt of pain and hardship, in the story of America he has never been surpassed, and seldom paralleled.”
There’s a small but growing group of us here in Buffalo who want to rebuild Le Griffon. She would look beautiful docked alongside La Salle Park. We’ve got the ship’s carpenters lined up to do the work gratus. Right now we’re settling into negotiations for possible materials funding as well as a ship yard to do the work. Stay tuned.
It was On This Day, August 7, 1927 that the Peace Bridge opened between Fort Erie and Buffalo. What a party they threw! William Lyon Mackenzie King joined British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and US Vice President Charles Dawes in dedicating the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, NY. Approximately 100,000 were in attendance. The festivities were transmitted to the public via radio in the first international coast-to-coast broadcast. Newspapers at the time estimated as many as 50 million listeners may have heard the broadcast.
August 7th must be an auspicious day for the Buffalo area and water related historic points. First Le Griffon covers the Great Lakes, then the Peace Bridge covers the Niagara River. Anything else? Jump to On This Day in 1978—when President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal, in response to Lois Gibb’s campaign. Not a body of water, Love Canal. But I guess that was the point. That’s all it should have been.
And that’s the news from On This Day from Buffalo.
Bill Zimmermann
Bill runs Seven Seas Sailing school, and is a staunch waterfront activist. He is also heavily involved with preserving, maintaining, and promoting the South Buffalo Lighthouse. When Bill first started writing for Buffalo Rising, he wrote an article a day for 365 days - each article coincided with a significant historic event that happened in Buffalo on that same day.