Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States

Background

Timeline

1824

• July 13 – Lafayette leaves France
• August 15 – Arrives at Staten Island, New York
• August 16 – Arrives in New York City, landing at Castle Garden
• August 20 – Leaves New York City and travels to Bridgeport, Connecticut, stopping along the way in Harlem and New Rochelle, New York, Byram Bridge and Putnam Hill in Greenwich, Connecticut, Stamford, Norwalk, Saugatuck, and Fairfield, Connecticut, staying at the Washington Hotel in Bridgeport
• August 21–24 – Makes stops in New Haven and Old Saybrook, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, Stoughton, Massachusetts, and Boston
• August 25 – Arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, visits former President John Adams at his estate of Peacefield in Quincy, Massachusetts
• August 31 – Leaves Boston, making stops at Lexington, Concord, Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport, Massachusetts
• September 1 – Visits Portsmouth, New Hampshire
• September 2 – Visits Boston and Lexington, Massachusetts
• September 3 – Visits Worcester, Massachusetts and Tolland, Connecticut
• September 4 – Visits Hartford and Middletown, Connecticut
• September 5 – Arrives in New York City
• September 10 – Visits African Free School No. 2 on Mulberry Street; celebrated with a short speech by 11-year old pupil James McCune Smith, later a prominent anti-slavery scholar, writer, and physician.
• September 11 – Celebrates the 47th anniversary of the Battle of Brandywine with French residents of New York
• September 15 – Visits Newburgh, New York
• September 16 – Visits Poughkeepsie, New York
• September 28 – Visit to Philadelphia with a parade followed by speeches at the State House under Philadelphia architect William Strickland's Triumphal Arches
• October 6 – Escorted to Wilmington, Delaware, by the Grand Lodge of Delaware Masons
• October 8 to October 11 – Toured Baltimore and met with surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution
• October 12 – Arrives in Washington, D.C., paraded into town, welcomed by the mayor in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, and celebrated with illuminations throughout the city and with a rocket show.
• October 15 – Spends the entire evening at Arlington House, although he returns to his hotel in Washington, D.C., at night
• October 17 – Visits Mount Vernon and George Washington's tomb in Virginia
• October 18–19 – Arrives by steamer in Petersburg, Virginia, for visit to Yorktown and festivities marking the 43rd anniversary of the battle; spent eight days in the Tidewater of Virginia area. This was one of his longest stays of the grand tour because it was the site of the American and French victory over the British at Yorktown. He arrived in Yorktown on October 18 on a ship where a water-borne honor guard met escorted him to a specially constructed Yorktown wharf, where he was greeted by a crowd of 15,000 people. Gov. James Pleasants and Virginia militia general Robert Barraud Taylor gave speeches in his honor. During the visit, the party visited temporary monuments, including a 45-foot tall arch at the site of his courageous assault at Redoubt #10 and a 76-foot tall obelisk at the site of the British surrender. A mass assembly greeted him at Surrender Field. He visited Williamsburg, Virginia and the College of William & Mary from October 19–22 and stayed in the Peyton Randolph House in Williamsburg. He attended an honorary banquet at Raleigh Tavern with Chief Justice John Marshall and Secretary of War John Calhoun. His party rode to Jamestown, Virginia and traveled to Portsmouth to see Norfolk Naval Shipyard. While in Hampton Roads, he visited the unfinished Fort Monroe, and then Colonel Abraham Eustis escorted him to inspect the Old Point Comfort stronghold, which had been designed by French-born engineer Simon Bernard. On October 25, he left the Tidewater area on a ship bound for Richmond.
• October 22 – Arrives in Norfolk, Virginia via steamer from Petersburg and spends four days there and in Portsmouth
• October – Arrives in Richmond, Virginia, on a steamer from Norfolk Edgar Allan Poe is in the youth honor guard in Richmond that welcomed him when he arrived.
• On November 2 – Left Richmond for Monticello to visit Jefferson
• November 8 – Attends a public banquet at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville
• November 20, 21, 22—visits Fredericksburg, VA with several parties in his honor, including 2 in City Hall, now the Fredericksburg Area Museum. The following week he expected to spend time at Woodlawn near Mount Vernon, and at Mount Vernon. He expected to be in Annapolis on December 15. ref information in a letter in the Fredericksburg Museum, cited 2019/5/1. Letter is in Lafayette's handwriting.
• Early December – Stays in Washington, D.C., visiting the White House, meeting several times with President Monroe and George Washington's relatives; visits the Washington Navy Yard
• December 8 and 9 – Makes official visits to the Senate and addresses Congress at the House of Representatives
• December 15 – Feted at the first commencement ceremony of the Columbian College in the District of Columbia
• December 17 – Arrives at Annapolis, Maryland, at 3 pm, is received in the Senate chamber and visits Fort Severn
• December 20 – Received at the Maryland State House
• December 24 – Arrives at the Jug Bridge crossing the Monocacy River on the National Road east of Frederick, Maryland

  1825

• January 1 – Attends a banquet hosted by Congress
• January 19 – Visits Baltimore and leaves January 20 on a steamboat bound for Norfolk, on his way to visit the legislature of Virginia at Richmond
• January 31 – Visits Perseverance Lodge #21 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
• February 23, 1825 – Sets off on the southern leg of his tour Because the route from Richmond to Raleigh was by carriage over poor roads, the traveling party was obliged to take the sandy "Lower Road" by Suffolk and Halifax.
• February 25—Interviewed by Poulson's Advertiser, a Philadelphia newspaper, recalls his wound at Brandywine
• February 26 — Overnight stop at the Indian Queen Inn in Murfreesboro, North Carolina
• February 27 – Traveled to Northampton Court House where he met the official North Carolina greeting party and stayed at Eagle Tavern in Halifax, North Carolina.
• February 28 – Traveled through Enfield, North Carolina, with a brief stop at the home of Joseph Branch and across the Tar River at the falls and spent the night at Col. Allen Rogers' Tavern at Rogers Crossroads in eastern Wake County, North Carolina
• March 1 — Viewed Canova's statue, George Washington, at the North Carolina State House. Traveled from Raleigh to his namesake town Fayetteville, North Carolina
• March 2–3 – Stays in Raleigh, where he is reunited with Colonel William Polk who fought beside him at the Battle of Brandywine where both were wounded
• March 15 – Arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, and enjoys three days of balls, fireworks, and reunions; is reunited with Francis Kinloch Huger, who is the son of his comrade Benjamin Huger and who tried to free Lafayette from an Austrian prison around 1795
• March 18 – Arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, to a 13-gun salute and speaks to citizens from the John Mark Verdier House

• March 19 – Arrived in Savannah, Georgia
• March 21 – Lays the cornerstone for a memorial to General Nathanael Greene
• March 23 – Traveled up the Savannah River by steamboat to Augusta, Georgia
• March 25 – Traveled along the Milledgeville Stage Road to Warrenton, Georgia
• March 26 – Continued on to Sparta, Georgia
• March 27 – Arrived in Milledgeville, Georgia where he meets with the Governor George Troup in an elaborate reception and feast at the Capitol grounds
• March 29 – Travels to Macon, Georgia, and visits the Old Creek Indian agency in Crawford County, Georgia
• March 30 – Spends the night in a bark-covered log cabin in Chattahoochee County, Georgia
• March 31 – Crosses the Chattahoochee River into Alabama and stays in Fort Mitchell, they begin their route west to Montgomery via military escort through Creek territory
• April 3 – Arrived in Montgomery
• April 4–6 – Party boards the Balize and the Henderson and makes its way over the Alabama River through Selma, Alabama, through the capital city of Cahaba, and then meet with members of the French Vine and Olive Colony near Demopolis, then makes an overnight visit to Claiborne, where he was entertained at a ball in the Masonic Lodge, still standing today.
• April 7 – Arrived in Mobile, Alabama
• April 8 – Governor Israel Pickens accompanies Lafayette by steamboat down Mobile Bay to Mobile Point, where he joins an official welcoming party from Louisiana, then boards the steamer Natchez which takes him to New Orleans
• April 11 – Arrived in Chalmette, Louisiana, site of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, lodges in The Cabildo, site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer ceremonies in 1803
• April 15 – Departs New Orleans on the steamer Natchez up the Mississippi River towards Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• April 16 – Baton Rouge for a reception and banquet, leaving just before nightfall
• April 18 – Stopped at Natchez, Mississippi
• April 28 – Natchez ties up for the evening at Carondelet, Missouri
• April 29 – Visits St. Louis, Missouri
• April 30 – Governor Edward Coles hosts Lafayette in Kaskaskia, Illinois, once the French capital of Upper Louisiana; dignitaries included Pierre Menard and William Stephen Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton
• May 4 – Arrived in Nashville, Tennessee
• May 8–9 – Their steamboat Mechanic sinks on the Ohio River; all passengers reach shore safely, but Lafayette loses property and money; the party is picked up the following day by the passing steamboat Paragon
• May 11 – Spent a day in Jeffersonville, Indiana, returned to Louisville that evening
• May 14 – Attended dinner and a ball in Frankfort, Kentucky
• May 15 – Spent the night at the home of Major John Keene, five miles from Lexington, Kentucky
• May 16–17 – Attended a military parade and spoke at Transylvania University and the Lexington Female Academy in Lexington
• May 18 – Arrived in Georgetown, Kentucky
• May 19–20 – Stayed in Cincinnati, Ohio
• May 21 – Arrived in Maysville, Kentucky
• May 22 – Visited the Our House Tavern in Gallipolis, Ohio
• May 24 – Visited Wheeling, Virginia

• May 25 – Visited Washington, Pennsylvania, dining at The George Washington Hotel and staying at the Globe Inn
• May 29 – Visited Brownsville, Pennsylvania
• May 29 – Visited Braddock, Pennsylvania
• May 30–31 – Stayed in Pittsburgh
• June 1 – Arrived in Butler, Pennsylvania
• June 4 – Gave speech at Eagle Tavern, Lafayette Square, Buffalo, and follows part of the uncompleted Erie Canal from Buffalo across New York
• June 7 – Met Revolutionary War veterans at Silvius Hoard's Tavern, Rochester, New York

• June 13 – Arrived in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and was received and gave speach to an audience at the Congregational Church located in the Park Square Historic District later dining at Joseph Merrick Coffee House before leaving.
• June 17 – Laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument during celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts, accompanied by Daniel Webster, who gives a rousing speech
• June 22 – Dover, New Hampshire
• June 23 – Arrived in South Berwick, Maine and spent the day in Saco, Maine and Biddeford, Maine.
• June 24 – Scarborough, Maine at 7AM and then at 9AM was welcomed at Portland, Maine, by Maine governor Albion Parris, Bowdoin College President William Henry Allen, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's father Stephen Longfellow.
• Sunday, June 27 — Arrived in Concord, New Hampshire and Claremont, New Hampshire
• June 28 — Crossed into Vermont at the Cornish Bridge, passing through Woodstock and taking a stagecoach through the mountains to Barnard and Royalton, Vermont. He passes through Randolph; here he is said to have met a young Justin S. Morrill and eventual Senator Dudley Chase. He is escorted with Governor Cornelius P. Van Ness and others through Barre to large festivities in Montpelier that include speeches by Supreme Court Judge Elijah Paine and others. He spends the night in Montpelier at The Pavilion.
• June 29—Lafayette meets with women's groups and then departs Montpelier for Burlington, Vermont, arriving there about 11:00am. He lays the cornerstone for the "South College" building at the University of Vermont and gives a talk to about 50–60 students. He is entertained at the Grasse Mount estate. He departs 12 hours after he arrives for Whitehall, New York.
• July 14 – Lafayette attends a banquet held in his honor at Sansay House in Morristown, New Jersey.
• July 15 – Lafayette attends a reception at Waverly House in then Bottle Hill, now Madison, New Jersey, on his way to Springfield.
• July 20 – Lafayette visits Germantown and Chestnut Hill, near Philadelphia. He specifically visited Wyck Historic House and Cliveden.
• July 25 – Lafayette again visits Wilmington, Delaware.
• July 26 – Lafayette departs Chester, Pennsylvania, for the Brandywine Battlefield, ending the day in West Chester.
• July 27 – Departs West Chester for Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
• Late July – Departs Lancaster for Baltimore, Maryland, via Port Deposit and Havre de Grace, Maryland. Spends two days in Baltimore.
• Late August – Lafayette returns to Mount Vernon.
• September 6 – Lafayette arrives in Washington, D.C., where he meets the new U.S. President John Quincy Adams, addresses a joint session of Congress and celebrates his 68th birthday at a White House banquet with President Adams.
• September 7 – Lafayette leaves Washington and returns to France on the frigate USS Brandywine.

  Honors received during the trip

1824: Visit to Monticello

1825: Return to France