That's interesting. Actually, while a college undergraduate, one summer my father was a member of an archaeology team which excavated a site on Rock Island, Wisconsin (Rock Island State Park), which the lead archaeologists, Dr. Ronald Mason and Dr. Carol Mason, believed to be the location where La Salle's ship, Le Griffon (the actual French name of the ship; English translation: The Griffin) most likely landed to take on a large number of furs brought there by the indigenous people from the surrounding area at the behest of voyageurs sent into the Upper Great Lakes region by La Salle. Rock Island lies in the mouth of Green Bay (the body of water in Lake Michigan.) Over the 5 years of archaeological excavations on Rock Island led by the Doctors Mason in the late 1960s into the early 1970s, many French trade goods were found as well as markings of a wooden stockade. Before La Salle left the captain and crew of Le Griffon (historical accounts state there were 6 men sent back with the ship and its load of valuable furs), he directed the captain and crew to leave supplies at Fort Michilimackinac (at present-day Mackinac Island, Michigan) for him and the other explorers in his group for their return. La Salle and the larger part of his group planned to continue their explorations in canoes along the western shore of Lake Michigan, along the Chicago River, and on to the Mississippi River and then return to New France via the route they had come, which they did. Le Griffon never made it to Fort Michilimackinac to leave the supplies. When La Salle and his group made their leave of Le Griffon and her crew, from the island in the mouth of Green Bay, Father Jules Hennepin, the Jesuit priest in the group, noted in his journal that it seemed like a storm was looming in the area of the lake where the ship was to sail the next day. That is why most historians believe the ship went down in a storm shortly after it left the island in the mouth of Green Bay.
PS Although it's not related to the shipwreck found in Florida, it's a nice story and wanted to share it
travel writer at
yourhomeworkhelp.org who is into model ship building
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