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Editor’s Note: This year marks the Bicentennial, 2024-2025, of Lafayette and his farewell tour, “Guest of the Nation”, which took place August 15, 1824-September 7, 1825. To commemorate the occasion, the LaGrange Daily News will be publishing a series of columns by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette.

Week of December 30, 1824-January 6, 1825

The title of Peggy Noonan’s book recently published, “A Certain Idea of America,” encapsulates what Lafayette represented to the masses of spectators turning out to see him.  He was a reminder of the sacrifices of the past which evoked a profound sentiment of gratitude; and he represented the hope which was the promise of “The Idea of America.”  Peggy Noonan says it differently, but the meaning is the same:  her idea of America is that it is good and that it has value.

At the beginning of the week Lafayette visited Frederick, Maryland, fifty miles northwest of Washington, D.C.  The crowd greeting him was estimated at eight thousand; buildings ornamented with French and American flags; and triumphal arches guarding the entrances to town.  Lafayette stayed at Colonel John McPherson’s home, an elegant structure on Council Street overlooking City Hall and which still stands.  A militia review at Talbot’s Hotel; a reception at the Masonic Lodge; a public ball at the Golden Fleece where he taste-tested a specialty libation, Maryland Rye Whiskey; and capped by a grand ball at the McPherson home which was no drive-by affair:  “This ball was perhaps the most famous that ever took place in Frederick County.  The Misses Creble, two fashionable milliners, were busy day and night for weeks making ball dresses for their customers.  They had some French flowers which had been presented to them and which they cultivated with great care; these were worked into headdresses.”  Lafayette was gracious in his thanks:  “I thank the good people of Frederick for the gratifying sentiments you have been pleased so kindly to express and for your honorable and affectionate welcome.”  He departed Frederick at 8 AM, December 31, back to Washington, D.C., and Gadsby’s Hotel.

On New Year’s Day at 6 PM, preceded by a reception at the president’s house, Lafayette and two hundred guests attended a congressional dinner at Williamson’s Hotel.  He was escorted to the dais by Representative Daniel Udree of Pennsylvania; both were at the Battle of Brandywine where Lafayette was wounded in the left calf, and where Udree’s horse was shot out from under him.  Lafayette sat between President Monroe and Mr. Gaillard, President Pro Tem of the Senate.  Henry Clay of Kentucky, one of the four contenders for Monroe’s job, gave the address, focusing on the republican rumble in South America fomented by Simon Bolivar.  Captain Allyn of “The Cadmus” was in the audience.  “The Cadmus” was the packet ship which brought Lafayette to America for the Farewell Tour, and more recently delivered from France Ary Scheffer’s life-size portrait of Lafayette as a gift to the United States.  Sixteen toasts.

Over the course of the week Lafayette received a formal invitation from the Pennsylvania legislature to visit Harrisburg; Congress formally announced the “Lafayette Grant”; and he received an honorary degree from the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, the first learned society established in Washington, D.C.

On December 5 Lafayette dined with Joel Roberts Poinsett.  Poinsett was a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, 1821-1825, having served as America’s first agent to South America prior to that.  While travelling Switzerland in 1803, he visited Jacques Necker and Necker’s daughter Madame de Stael.  Necker had been the popular minister of finance during the turbulent time of the French Revolution.  His daughter was a well-known writer and salon hostess whom Lafyette knew very well.  Poinsett would become a co-founder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, the precursor to the Smithsonian Institution.  All of which is to say Poinsett and Lafayette had much in common.  As an interesting sidebar, from 1825-1829 Poinsett was America’s first minister to Mexico.  Something of a botanist, he came upon a plant south of Mexico City called the “Catarina,” or “The Christmas Eve Flower.”  He sent samples to the United States where it soon became known as the “poinsettia.”