On the 28th of August, 1660, Rene Mesnard left Quebec, resolved to make greater progress in the exploration of the Northwest. He ascended the Sault in a canoe, coasted along the northern shore of the upper peninsula of Michigan, and on the 15th of October of that year reached the head of Keweenaw bay to which he gave the name of St. Theresa. Eight years later (1668) a permanent mission was established at the Sault. In the autumn of 1678 occurred an event forever memorable in the annals of Michigan. There was then laid on the Niagara river the keel of the first large vessel built on the shores of the great lakes. It was completed and launched early in the following summer, and on the 7th of August, 1679 (200 years ago), amid the discharges of arquebuses and the sound of swelling _Te Deums_ it began the first voyage ever made by Europeans upon the upper inland seas of North America. This was the "Griffin," sixty tons burden, carrying five guns, with La Salle commander, Hennepin missionary and journalist, and a crew of Canadian fur traders. Three days later (August 10), after many soundings, they reached the islands grouped at the entrance of Detroit river. They thus knew the lake was navigable by vessels of large size--this was one step toward solving the destiny of the West. Ascending the river, the explorers passed by a large number of Indian villages; these had been visited years before by Jesuit missionaries and _coureurs des bois_. Some fix the date as early as 1610, but others make it later, no names being given in either case. Louis Hennepin gives the earliest description of the river: "The strait (De troit) is finer than Niagara, being one league broad, excepting that part which forms the lake that we have called St. Clair." The strait once voyaged and understood, its value was quickly appreciated by the French as a means of resisting the inroads of the persevering English (who from New York and New England were pressing upon their possessions in the East), and of preventing British interference with the valuable hunting privileges or with the Indian tribes dwelling upon the borders of the Northern lakes. With this in view the Marquis de Nonville, Governor-General of the Canadas, ordered (June 6, 1686) M. Du Lhut, who had been commandant at Michilimackinac, "to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie, with a garrison of fifty men," and the order added, "I desire you to choose an advantageous place to secure the passage, which may protect our savages who go to the chase, and serve them as an asylum against their enemies and ours." In obedience to these instructions, M. Du Lhut proceeded to the entrance of the strait from Lake Huron, where he built a fort and established a trading post (on the site of the present Fort Gratiot) which he called Fort St. Joseph. Thus (1686) was made the first settlement by Europeans in the lower peninsula of Michigan.