A young Frenchman, Julien Icher, founder of the Lafayette Trail, has been working with the American Friends of Lafayette to erect historical markers at each of Lafayette’s stops.[1] Also during this bicentennial, there will be a number of reenactments. For example, one woman planned reenactments of his visit to Fort McHenry (Baltimore), his address to Congress, and his visits to Philadelphia and New York City (see here). Another reenactment was planned for Lancaster, Pennsylvania (see here). And one will take place at Montpelier, James Madison’s home, on November 16. A re-enactment of Lafayette and Jefferson’s greeting at Monticello on November 4 will occur at Monticello on November 17, 2024.

Lafayette traveled 6,000 miles by carriage and boat in his tour of all 24 states — the 13 original states and the 11 which had been admitted since: Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), and Missouri (1821). It is remarkable that these states had been admitted on an equal basis with the original ones.[2]

We know Lafayette attended Mass during his tour in a country having very few priests. As background, when John Carroll was consecrated as the first bishop of Baltimore in 1789, there were 25 priests, almost all of them located in Maryland. Carroll invited priests from other countries to come to the United States. After 1803, the number of priests grew because the purchase of the Louisiana Territory came under Carroll’s jurisdiction. By 1820, there were 195,000 Catholics in the United States, including those in Louisiana. That year, John England became bishop of the Diocese of Charleston. The diocese covered Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. There were two churches and six priests.

According to detailed records, on Sunday, October 3, 1824, Lafayette attended vespers at St. Augustine’s Church in Philadelphia.[3] On Sunday, October 10, he attended high Mass at the cathedral in Baltimore with Charles Carroll.[4] On Tuesday, May 31, he was the godfather of a child with the first name Lafayette receiving baptism at St. Patrick’s, Pittsburgh.[5] On Tuesday, March 15, 1825, he greeted Bishop John England and his clergy in Charleston.[6] He attended other worship services as well.[7]

A map of Lafayette’s stops is shown on this website. Below is a less than comprehensive list:

August 1824: New York (New York City, Harlem, New Rochelle); Connecticut (Bridgeport, Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, Saugatuck, Fairfield, New Haven); Rhode Island (Providence); Massachusetts (Boston, Cambridge, Quincy), meets with former President John Adams

September 1824: New Hampshire (Portsmouth); Massachusetts (Boston, Concord, Lexington, Worcester); Connecticut (Hartford); New York (New York City, Newburgh, West Point, meets with Janet Montgomery, widow of General Richard Montgomery at Montgomery Place, Poughkeepsie, Troy); Philadelphia

October 1824: Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Virginia (Mount Vernon, Yorktown, Norfolk, Richmond, Williamsburg). The event in Yorktown was huge, given Lafayette’s leading role in its surrender.

Lafayette’s Visit to George Washington’s Tomb

I stop for a moment here with reverential pause. Lafayette was accompanied on his trip by his son George Washington Lafayette and, as mentioned, his personal secretary Auguste Levasseur. Levasseur’s memoirs of the trip were published in French in 1828 and in English in 1829.[8] He wrote about Lafayette’s October 17 visit to Washington’s tomb:[9] “the tomb is scarcely perceived amid the somber cypresses…Lafayette descended alone in the vault, and a few minutes thereafter reappeared, with his eyes overflowing with tears. He took his son and me by the hand, and led us into the tomb… We knelt reverentially near his coffin, which we respectfully saluted with our lips; rising, we mingled our tears with his.”[10] Lafayette then gave the following remarks, not reported by Levasseur, as seen in his handwritten notes, now accessible online: “The feelings, which on this awful moment oppress my heart don’t leave me the power of utterance. I can only thank you, my dear Custis [Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis] for your precious gift [a sprig of cedar from the tomb] and pray a silent homage to the tomb of the greatest and best of men, my paternal friend.”[11]

Part 3 will continue with Lafayette’s extended stay with Thomas Jefferson.

[A link to Part 3 is here. A link to Part 1 is here.]

[1] Information about Julien Icher is here. A link to American Friends of Lafayette is here. And the following are the historical markers in Jefferston, Loudon County Virginia, and at Madison’s home, Montpelier.

[2] See generally Peter S. Onuf, Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance (1987).

[3] J. Bennett Nolan, Lafayette in America: Day by Day (1934), p. 252.

[4] Nolan, p. 253; Levasseur, vol. 1, p. 161.

[5] Nolan, p. 259.

[6] Nolan, p. 278.

[7] Nolan, p. 249 (Trinity Church, Manhattan, Sept. 12, 1824); Levasseur, vol. 1, p. 217 (July 4, 1824, Brooklyn; unnamed church, therefore possibly Catholic).

[8] Lafayette in America, in 1824 and 1825 or Journal of Travels in the United States (vol. 1, Vol. 2, trans. John D. Goodman, 1829).

[9] The original tomb, not the current one. “Famous Visits to Washington’s Tomb,” Mount Vernon.

[10] Levasseur, vol. 1, pp. 175-6.

[11] “Lafayette’s Triumphal Tour: America, 1824-1825,” LaFayette: Citizen of Two Worlds, exhibit of Cornell University.