The French in the Heart of America

by John H. Finley

The ships of the lion brood are, some of them, five or six hundred feet in length, and carry eleven thousand tons of cargo. I have seen the skeleton of one of these iron-boned beasts, and I have been told that eight hundred thousand rivets go into its creation. And upon hearing this I could not but hear the deafening clamor caused by La Salle's driving the first nail or bolt, Father Hennepin declining the honor because of the "modesty of [his] religious profession."

As to the cargoes that these ships bring back, the story is even more marvellous. First in quantity is iron ore, forty-seven million four hundred and thirty-five thousand seven hundred and seventy-one tons in 1912 [Footnote: "Mineral Industry," 21:455.] from the shores of Superior, where Joliet had made search for copper mines, where Father Allouez—in the midst of reports of baptisms and masses—tells of nuggets and rocks of the precious metal, and where has grown up in a few years the "second greatest freight-shipping port on earth"—a port that bears the name of that famous French coureur de bois, Du Lhut. Forty-seven millions of tons, and there are still a billion and a half in sight on those shores, which have already given to the ships hundreds of millions of their dark treasure.

After the ore, lumber, one billion one hundred and sixty-five million feet [Footnote: Monthly Summary of Internal Commerce of the United States, December, 1911.] in one year (1911); a waning amount from the vanishing forests that once completely encircled these lakes. Alexander Pope, whose "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day" I have quoted (and would there were a Homer, Pope, or Kipling to sing this true legend), speaks of Argo seeing "her kindred trees descend from Pelion to the Main"—from the mountain to the sea, where Jason's boat was launched. So, with the departure of the Griffin from her Green Bay Island, might a prophetic poet have seen her masts beckoning all the kindred trees to the water, in which one hundred and sixty billion feet of pine have descended from the forests of Michigan alone, [Footnote: Curwood, "The Great Lakes," p. 57.] and that is but one of the circling States. And there is this singular fact to be added, that nearly a third of the annual cargo goes to the "Tonawandas," [Footnote: Curwood, "The Great Lakes," p. 54.] the "greatest lumber towns" in the world that have grown up practically on the very site of the shipyard at the mouth of Cayuga Creek, a little way above the falls.

And after the ore and lumber, grain—the fleece of the fields, immensely more valuable than that of the forests; one hundred and fifty million bushels in one year and eleven million barrels of flour—a fortnight's bread supply for the entire world. [Footnote: Curwood, "The Great Lakes," p. 49.]

And after ore and lumber and grain, fuel and other bulky necessities of life.

The casual relation between the pioneer building and journey of the Griffin and these statistics cannot, of course, be established, but what no inspired human prophecy could have divined, or even the wildest dreaming of La Salle have imagined, is as sequential as the history that has been made to trace all new-world development in the wake of the caravels of Columbus. The storms of nature and the jealousies in human breasts thwarted La Salle's immediate ambitions, but what has come into that northern valley has followed closely in the path of his purposes, the path traced by his ship built of the trees of Niagara and furnished by the chandleries of Paris.

The mystery of the vanishing of this pioneer vessel only enhances the glory of its venture and service—as its loss but gave new foil to the hardihood of La Salle and Tonty. We can imagine the golden-brown skins scattered over the blue waters as the bits of the body of the son of the king of Colchis strewn by Medea to detain the pursuers of the Argonauts. It was the first sacrifice to the valley for the fleece. In the depths of these Lakes or on their shores were buried the bones of these French mariners who, first of Europeans, trusted themselves to sails and west winds on those uncharted seas.

But this is not the all of the tragic story. The Griffin carried in her the prophecies of other than lake vessels. She had in her hold on that fateful trip the cordage and iron for the pioneer of the river ships. So when she went down she spoke to the waters that engulfed her the two dreams of her builder and commander: one dream the navigation of the lakes and the other the coursing of the western rivers.

The Spanish council which decreed long ago that "if it had pleased God that … rivers should have been navigable, He would not have wanted human assistance to make them such" would be horrified by the sacrilege that has been committed and is being contemplated by the followers of the men of the Griffin.

They have made a canal around the Falls (which Hennepin first saw breathing a cloud of mist over the great abyss)—a canal that, supplemented by other canals along the St. Lawrence River, allows vessels of fourteen-foot draught to go from Lake Erie to Montreal and so on to the sea. If this achievement were put into the poetry of legend it would show the outwitting of the dragon.