March 2015 Vol 25
Shaping up to be a Controversial Program
Page 1
We had no idea that the wreck of the Griffon and other topics such as treasure in lake Michigan would appear in the news media when we asked Joan Forsberg (right) to be our keynote speaker at the our 17th annual Mysteries and Histories Beneath the Inland Seas Program. The recent pronouncement (again) that the Griffon has been found caused quite a stir in the diving and shipwreck community, and prompted our own board member Valerie van Heest to chime in with her opinions. Please enjoy her editorial from atop a “soap box” about this very hot topic. And please consider renewing your membership if you have not already in order to get your complimentary tickets to the event. We look forward to seeing you there and having you weigh in on these controversial topics. Craig Rich Board of Directors, MSRA The Michigan Shipwreck Shipwreck Explorers Research Association has solved the mystery of the loss Solve 75-Year Old of the massive steel freighter Mystery William B. Davock and its 33 crewmembers in the deadly The William B. Davock in its Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940. It was November 11, 1940 – Armistice better days. Day. By noon it was a balmy 65 degrees. But then, a rapidly deepening low pressure system swept in out of the southwest, colliding with a cold front from the north. Within hours, temperatures dropped 50 degrees and a wild blizzard raged across the Great Lakes. Before the storm abated,
Page 3 2
Notice the rudder out of place and the broken blade on the propeller of the William B. Davock. (Video capture by Jeff Vos)
more than 150 people were dead. On Lake Michigan, dozens of large freighters, car ferries and fish tugs were caught by surprise as they faced 80 mile per hour winds and thirty foot waves. Many suffered severe damage. Three of these huge freighters: the William B. Davock, Anna C. Minch, and the Novadoc sank – the first two with all hands. Coincidently, all were lost within just a few miles of each other off Michigan’s west coast. Of the storm’s victims, 67 were lost on Lake Michigan. In the wake of the storm, searchers discovered the wreck of the 250-foot Novadoc, sunk up to its deck just off Little Sable Point south of Pentwater. Local fishermen rescued the surviving crew, but two men already had perished in the storm. Five miles north, the fishermen found a telltale mast sticking above the water that revealed the final resting place of the 380-foot Anna C. Minch. It was only a mile from the safety of the Pentwater channel also in shallow water. Dives to the wreck revealed that the ship was in two pieces more than 600 feet apart. With the Davock still missing, many feared it had been involved in a collision with the Minch. But, despite a thorough search off Pentwater, the wreck of the Davock was not found. Only the bodies of half of the crew washed ashore at Ludington. For 32 years, the mystery of what befell the Davock lingered. Then, in 1972, pioneering scuba divers found the Davock in 200 feet of water, several miles from the final resting spot of the Anna Minch. “Visibility in those days was pretty bad,” said Valerie van Heest, a maritime historian and director of Michigan Shipwreck Research Association (MSRA), a nonprofit underwater archaeological organization. “All the divers could see and report was that the wreck in one piece and was upside down.” The wreck of the Davock was too far from the Anna Minch, so the theory that the two ships collided was dropped. A shipwreck “turned turtle” usually suggests that the waves capsized it on the surface, and conditions were certainly bad enough on that Armistice Day to cause that. However, dozens of other freighters survived the storm out in open water and the large and powerful Davock should have been able to manage it. Like a crime scene, the answer to what caused the sinking could lie on the wreck. “Because the wreck is deep and upside down, few divers ever bothered to risk the dive,” said van Heest. “Those who did, encountered such bad visibility they could barely find the wreck, much less film it.” With the approach of the 75th anniversary of the Armistice Day storm, the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association thought it finally time to investigate the shipwreck and try to determine what caused it to capsize. The team planned their dive for a late fall day in 2014, when cold water typically offers the best visibility, and when the sun was high overhead. Holland diver Jeff Vos of MSRA captured the only known footage ever shot of the wreck. MSRA’s deep water survey has finally solved the mystery of the loss of the William B. Davock. “We’ve never seen such clear cut proof before and we’ve surveyed dozens of shipwrecks,” explained van Heest. “The answer lies at the stern. The rudder is broken and one of four blades on the propeller are snapped clean off.” Vos, an engineer and avid boater, explained the sinking: “The waves were so strong, they must have snapped the rudder’s connection, at which point it swung so far over that it struck the propeller.” With no power or steering, the Davock would have been at the mercy of the storm.
Page 3
“It would have quickly broached,” said van Heest, describing the ship turning sideways to the waves. “In that vulnerable position the force of the waves rolled the freighter.” For Arnold Johnson, the reason why the Davock sank is a long time coming. His father was the third engineer aboard the ship and his body was never recovered. Johnson was waiting at the dock in Pentwater when the MSRA survey team returned from their dive, and was the first person to see the video of the wreck.” My Dad is still down there,” Johnson said. “This shipwreck is his grave.” Van Heest will be sharing the full story of the devastating Armistice Day storm at MSRA’s annual event “Mysteries and Histories Beneath the Inland Seas” at 7:00 on March 21, 2015 at the Knickerbocker Theater in Holland.
It’s About Time! Your help is needed The shipwreck Hennepin – the world’s first self-unloader – was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008 through the efforts of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association. Most sites listed on the register have official state historic markers, but do you know how they get there? Not through the efforts of a state government. Those signs must be paid for and erected by the owners of the historic site only after approval by the offices of the National Register of Historical Places ( a 10-12 month process). Although the state technically owns the Hennepin, it has no plans to install a marker. Only shipwreck site, the tug Sport in 60-feet of water in Lake Huron has such a marker, and it has been installed underwater by the organization that manges the underwater preserve in which it is located. While MSRA could apply for and install a marker underwater on the Hennepin, we believe that at 230-feet deep it is not regularly seen by enough people to warrant the expense. To the rescue comes the Michigan Maritime Museum. As the museum closest to the final resting place of the Hennepin, it has offered to serve as a host location. MSRA and the museum hope that through the support of our collective members, we can raise the money for a marker expressing the significance of this unique vessel. A small pedestal-mounted sign such as the one at right, will cost $2750.00. Will you consider being a supporter of this project? If so, we would appreciate an email to Valerie@michiganshipwrecks.org or info@michiganmaritimemuseum.org to pledge your donation in increments of $100. Your donation will be tax deductible from either organization. We will not ask for your contribution until we receive enough pledges to cover the entire cost. MSRA Board members have pledged $300 thus far, so we are off to a good start!
Wouldn’t this look good titled Hennepin?
Do you remember Bob Doornbos’ excellent drawing of the wreck of the Hennepin?
Keep Reading! Griffon editorial next three pages The Michigan Shipwreck Research Association, is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit, whose mission is to preserve and interpret Michigan’s submerged maritime history. The organization’s work includes research, exploration, documentation, and the creation of educational programming regarding historic shipwrecks within Michigan waters. As a Holland-based volunteer-driven stern of the Aurora. organization, MSRA relies on memberships, fund raising events, donations, and grants to continue itsThe work.
Photograph by Bill Martinus
Can we talk about
Le Griffon?
Page 5 4
Le Griffon by Robert McG
reevey
A March 2015 editorial by Valerie van Heest, author of Lost and Found: Legendary Lake Michigan Shipwrecks. (A book about TRUE stories of shipwrecks.)
A
s a maritime historian, avocational underwater archaeologist, and exhibit designer, I have had a fascination with Le Griffon, the first ship lost on the upper Great Lakes. Much has been written about Le Griffon, but even more has been written about its discovery, or shall I say discoveries. In fact, to date, the wreck of Le Griffon has been discovered 22 times! Two recent discovery claims have put Le Griffon back in the headlines. BUT YOU CAN’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE NEWS! For those who may not have heard of Le Griffon, here’s the basic story: French explorer Robert La Salle oversaw the construction of Le Griffon near the Niagara River in 1679 for use in the fur trading business. The 45-ton barque carried two brass cannons, three deck guns, and according to most sources, sported a Griffon figurehead. La Salle and crew set out on its maiden voyage in August 1679, sailing through Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, carrying supplies to build another ship. After they picked up a cargo of furs off present day Door County, Wisconsin, La Salle sent Le Griffon back to the Niagara with pilot Lucas, who was reportedly “as huge as a giant,” and five crewmen. LaSalle and his other men paddled south in canoes, and Le Griffon sailed northeast, never to be seen again. That’s when the rumors began, and they have not let up for 336 years! I will forgo the descriptions of 19 of the 22 claims of discovery (all pretty far-fetched), and start with one of the most recent. In 2004, news headlines proclaimed “Diver suggests that he’s found the Great Lakes’ First European shipwreck.” Steve Libert had found a wooden timber off Poverty Island near Door County, Wisconsin, which he claimed was the bowsprit on.” The Poverty Island “Griff of Le Griffon. He was “99% sure” the rest of the ship lay sunken into the mucky bottom below it. Those of us who looked at his dark, grainy pho-
tos of the “bowsprit,” did not see anything that looked like a spar at a vessel’s prow. We saw only a squared-off, wooden stick with pegs in it. Very soon, we began referring to it as a telephone pole or, more likely, a pound net stake like those used by Native American fishermen. On top of that, the only shipwrecks we knew had become submerged in sand were in Lake Erie, known to have a particularly silty lake bottom. My skepticism about Libert’s discovery was compounded by a previous nonsensical claim he had made. In 1994, Libert sued the State of Michigan for ownership of the shipwreck Captain Lawrence, which sank off Door County, Wisconsin, in 1933, carrying, according to Libert, “$400 million in French gold—the fabled Poverty Island treasure.” Libert was under the impression that the owner of the Captain Lawrence had found that gold, but his ship sank before he could get the treasure back to shore. Libert believed that the Captain Lawrence was buried in the muck beneath some loose ship debris he found. Is there a pattern forming here? Suffice it to say, nothing every came of Libert’s Poverty Island treasure. I waited for his Le Griffon claim to fizzle out too. However, we had to suffer through years of media coverage about the famous stick because it took until the summer of 2013 for Libert to acquire an excavation permit. When he finally dug down beneath the stick, guess what he found? Nothing! Not willing to give up his dream of discovering the elusive Griffon, Libert kept up his search. He went back to the media a year later to announce that, lo and behold, not far from his stick, he found “wooden planks, nails, and pegs strewn across the floor of the lake.” He told reporters, “This is definitely the Griffon—I’m 99.9 percent sure.”
Page 5
I thought about Aesop’s Fable, “The Boy who Cried Wolf.” Imagine the amusement of the maritime community, when another Griffon claim hit the news in December 2014: “Muskegon divers claim to find elusive Le Griffon shipwreck.” Apparently Fred Monroe and Kevin Dykstra had stumbled upon a small, dilapidated wreck off Frankfort, Michigan, that they were sure was Le Griffon. Frankfort…really? Boy those French explorers had no sense of direction. They showed a photograph of a lump of quagga mussels and pointed out how that lump resembled a Griffon head. To help us see the Griffon head, they superimposed a Griffon head over the lump. Ah, the beauty of Photoshop. They also told reporters that they “accidently” brought up a nail when it “attached itself” to a magnet they were carrying. The accident (wink, wink) story was necessary because removing anything from a wreck is a felony. Now that they, surreptitiously, had the nail, they noticed it was hand-forged and concluded that hand-forged nails were not made much after 1679, offering evidence that the wreck was Le Griffon. I don’t pretend to be a nail expert, but I’m pretty sure that hardware stores selling machine-made nails did not start cropping up in 1680. This was not the first time I had heard about these Muskegon divers. Several years earlier, they approached a maritime historian in Wisconsin. He reviewed their images and concluded that the wreck was probably 19th or 20th century vintage. He told me it looked like a burned tugboat. Dykstra actually telephoned me shortly after that. He told me he had found Le Griffon, but wasn’t calling about that. The Frankfort
“Griffon.”
I rolled my eyes because I had just heard the expert’s conclusion. Instead, he wanted to ask my opinion on something else he had found in Lake Michigan; something he believed was a 240-foot steel freighter I had written about in one of my books. He described what he had seen, but it didn’t even sound like a shipwreck, let alone a 240-foot steel freighter. I told him he didn’t need an archaeologist to identify a 240foot steel freighter. It would look like a giant metal tube that measured 240-feet long. I cautioned him that dark waters, busted up shipwrecks, and vivid imaginations, can have a way of making us see things that aren’t there. I spoke from experience. After searching for four years for very famous and elusive 200-foot steamer Chicora, we at the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association discovered a 200-foot steamer. The wreck was too deep for us to explore with SCUBA, so we used a drop camera. After capturing only 30 seconds of video, the camera imploded due to the pressure. However, in that short video we unmistakably saw the hull of a steamer— and assumed that we had found the object of our search. You know what the word ASSUME stands for! We were so excited that we told the media we had found a shipwreck that could be the Chicora. The reporters translated that to “Chicora Found!” The only trouble was when we managed to capture more video, we realized we had really found the 200-foot steamer H.C. Akeley. OOPS! With tail between our legs, we sheepishly explained our blunder to the media. I hoped that by sharing our mistake with Dykstra, he would not make the same one. But, just like my kids don’t listen when I tell them to put on their coats, my caution fell on deaf ears. The Muskegon duo’s Griffon claim got even more amusing when they reported that they had found the wreck accidently while searching for “two-million dollars of confederate gold bullion lost off a carferry.” I won’t waste your time regurgitating their convoluted story of how they imagined that gold bars, buried in Georgia for four decades, were sent by train to Michigan, loaded on a carferry at Frankfort, and pushed off during a storm. Suffice it to say, Dykstra and Monroe were “100% sure” that the gold was out there just waiting to be found. Wow, there’s a lot of gold in Lake Michigan! I find it interesting that anyone would reveal details about a lost treasure to the public. If I knew where to find a stash of gold, I wouldn’t tell millions of people! Apparently the Frankfort city manager was glad the secret of the lost gold had gone public. He told reporters that the town might
Page 6
need to prepare for an influx of treasure hunters. I won’t be there jockeying for a spot at the launch ramp. Gold delusions aside, there was still the lingering mystery of Monroe and Dykstra’s “Griffon.” However, it would not take as long to burst their bubble as it did to burst Steve Libert’s. After viewing the duo’s underwater footage in February 2015, Michigan State Archaeologist Wayne Lusardi told a reporter, “Based on some of the objects visible in the photos, and the description of the wreck by the discoverers, it suggests strongly that it is not Le Griffon, but rather a 19th, early 20th century vessel.” Isn’t that the same thing the maritime historian told them years earlier? Unfortunately, this claim will not be put to rest until Lusardi dives the wreck. I’m not holding my breath. What these modern treasure hunters all seem to overlook, and what few people even know about, is a Griffon discovery claim made over a century ago that has never been proven wrong. I know about that claim thanks to maritime historians and authors Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg, who just released their book, The Wreck of the Griffon, which I consider the “Bible” about this ship. The authors recount all of the Griffon discovery claims (some pretty funny) and focus considerable attention on the “Mississagi Strait wreck,” first seen in the early 1800s by native tribes along the shores of the Mississagi Strait at Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron in Canada. As the book indicates, soon after a new lighthouse was built on Manitoulin Island in 1877, the keeper noticed a wreck at the water’s edge that appeared partially burned and scavenged. It was about 40-feet long with metal-like caulking. In the late 1890s, that same keeper stumbled upon a nearby cave. Inside, he found two skeletons, one with a giant-sized skull. Later, he found another cave with four skeletons. Among the bones in both caves, he found scattered coin-like tokens with dates in the mid-1600s, buttons, shipbuilding tools, two small canon rams, and a pocket watch. However he, nor anyone on Manitoulin Island, had ever heard of Le Griffon. Fast forward 30 years. In 1924, Harold Tucker, a lawyer from Owen Sound, who had seen the Mississagi wreck and knew about the cave discoveries, became convinced it was Le Griffon. It was the right size, it was located along Le Griffon’s route, the artifacts dated to the 1600s, and the over-sized skull matched accounts of the giant pilot Lucas. However, Tucker died before he could prove his claim. Historian Roy Fleming took over and sent some of the artifacts to a laboratory in Paris. Those experts concluded that the hardware
was consistent with the type made by the French in the late 1600s, and the calking was lead, a material often used by French shipbuilders in the 1600s. Everything suggested that the Mississagi wreck was Le Griffon, but no official proclamation was ever made. Today, some remains of that wreck are on display at three small museums on Manitoulin Island. Unlike the recent Griffon discoverers, Kohl and Forsberg are far too professional to make bold claims that the Missassagi wreck was Le Griffon, but they do feel there is enough evidence to make it “a compelling Griffon contender.” I agree, but, that’s not what wanna-be-famous finders of Le Griffon would like to believe. I find it curious that the two recent “Griffon” discoveries were made by treasure hunters, and that none of them had ever previously been involved in a legitimate shipwreck discovery. Kind of like a UPS guy finding a cure for cancer. I might one day have to eat my words, but I am fully prepared to do that if I am shown “a smoking gun,” or in this case, at least one smoking cannon. From atop my soap box, I conclude by saying that I consider it terribly irresponsible of explorers to run to the media without more evidence than loose timbers, lumps of mussels, and dreams of fame.
The Mississa
gi Wreck, Co
urtesy Kohl/
Forsburg Arc
hives.