In celebration of New York State History and Archives Month, this episode follows the trail of the Marquis de Lafayette, the orphaned member of one of France’s oldest and wealthiest families who became a trusted confident and military leader for George Washington during the American Revolution. 50 years later, Lafayette returned to the young United States traveled to every state in existence at the time and was greeted by huge crowds as a living symbol of the Founding Generation.
Interviewees: Julien Icher, Founder and President of the Lafayette Trail Inc and Lafayette250., and Kathy Sheehan, Troy City and Rensselaer County Historian, and Executive Director of the Hart-Cluett House Museum.
Marker of Focus: Lafayette’s Tour, Rensselaer County.
Further Reading:
“Who Was Lafayette? Why Is He Important to Americans?” The Lafayette Trail, Inc.
Ryan Cole, The Last Adieu: Lafayette’s Triumphant Return, the Echoes of Revolution, and the Gratitude of the Republic, 2025.
Mike Duncan, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, 2022.
Marquis de Lafayette, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Manuscripts, Internet Archive, 1837.
Music: "Lemon Groves" by Bon Voyage
Educational Resources:
The American Revolution Institute: Fete Lafayette Lesson Plans.
C-SPAN Classroom: America, France and the Marquis de Lafayette.
Colonial Williamsburg: The Marquis de Lafayette.
Devin Lander:
Welcome to A New York Minute in History I’m Devin Lander, the New York State Historian.
Lauren Roberts:
And I’m Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. On this month's episode, we're focusing on a marker at 234 River Street in the city of Troy, which is in Rensselaer County. And the text reads Lafayette's tour on September 18, 1824, General Lafayette was met here at the Troy house and addressed a crowd before going to meet Emma Willard at her school New York, Daughters of the American Revolution. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2022, so while we're focusing on this particular marker about Lafayette's tour, there's actually currently 175 of these Lafayette tour markers on the William G Pomeroy marker map on their website. And these are all part of Lafayette's trail. In fact, Lafayette, when he was here in 1824 and 1825 visited each of the 24 states that were then part of the United States of America. So we're going to look into who Lafayette was and why his extraordinary return, 50 years after the revolution, was so impactful here in the US, and what we are doing to carry on that legacy 200 years later.
Devin Lander:
I think a lot of people are aware of the Marquis de Lafayette. Certainly the name Lafayette is synonymous with the American Revolution. If you're aware of him, that is.
Lauren Roberts:
Probably many people know him as America's fighting Frenchman from Hamilton.
Devin Lander:
Exactly, and also the fact that his name was used to name very many municipalities, streets, roads, entire counties, cities. So it's important for us to kind of dig down into who was the Marquis de Lafayette? Well, initially, he was a French nobleman. He was born in 1757, in France into one of the oldest and wealthiest families of the French nobility. He was essentially an aristocrat and was raised as such, but he was orphaned relatively young. His father was actually killed in the French and Indian War, or also known as the Seven Years War fighting the British, which I think his father's death at the hands of the British imparted into the Marquis de Lafayette an obvious distrust, if not hatred, of the British that lasted the rest of his life. His mother also passed away when he was quite young, and when he was 11 years old, he was orphaned and inherited his father's title of the Marquis de Lafayette, and he was similar to many nobles of his stature in France and elsewhere. He really sought a military career. He wanted to become a soldier and a leader of men. He was part. Part of the French military at a very young age, but it was a meeting with the actual brother of the King of England, King George at the time, who was attending a dinner with the Marquis de Lafayette and other nobles in France. They had a tenuous relationship between the two nations at this time, but it was during one of the eras when there was no outright war between France and England. But King George's brother was talking about the Americans and the colonists and how they were trying to uprise and throw off the yoke of the aristocracy of England. And he was really talking about them in derogatory terms and laughing about how they thought that all men are created equal or and it didn't depend on how you were born or whether or not you were born into the aristocracy. And the Marquis de Lafayette, despite being an aristocrat himself really thought that the ideas that the Americans were putting forward were in line with his own beliefs. And you add that to the fact that he hated the British, and he decided that he was going to go to the colonies, and he was going to offer his services as a 19 year old soldier and wealthy aristocrat to the American cause, and that's exactly what he did. He bought his own boat, he sailed across the Atlantic with his own crew, and he landed and was initially brought to Brandywine, which is where George Washington and the colonial army was and was introduced to George Washington initially, when the Marquis de Lafayette landed in the colonies, what is now the United States, some folks around George Washington and some folks who were involved in the American Revolution thought that he may have just been another European Noble who was interested in his own career and following adventure.
Lauren Roberts:
Lafayette certainly wasn't the only young man from across the world coming to the colonies to try to make a name for themselves in the military as part of the American Revolution. But ultimately, Silas Dean, who was a representative of the Continental Congress that was sent to France. He offered the Marquis de Lafayette a commission, and that's how he got in. He met Washington, he made a real impression on him, and was welcomed into the Continental Army and became one of Washington's right hand man.
Devin Lander:
The relationship between Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette has been studied by historians, but it's really worth mentioning here, as an orphan and much younger than George Washington, we noted that the Marquis de Lafayette was 19 years old when he first took part in the American Revolution as an orphan, George Washington was 45 years old and also childless, so there was really the Father Son dynamic that pretty quickly, I think, took off between the two men. Certainly the Marquis de Lafayette looked up to Washington, and I think Washington saw in the Marquis de Lafayette, not only somebody that could potentially help their cause, perhaps help negotiate with France and all of those things that came later, but also somebody who was pretty good at being a soldier. And the battle of Brandywine is an example where the Marquis de Lafayette really shows his his ability to lead troops, and is actually wounded in the leg and did not take any health care until after the battle because he was so involved in trying to rally the troops and all of that. So it's pretty quick that Washington entrusts him with his own division as a leader, as a very young leader, but the marquee keeps doing his job to the best of his ability and becomes one of the most dedicated and respected leaders on Washington staff and one of the officers that Washington really confides in, because he didn't trust everyone, and rightfully so, as we will find out with Benedict Arnold, that Washington, you know, at some point, was very much surrounded, in many cases, by officers who had their own best intentions in mind, and in some cases, we're at outright traders. So in the Marquis de Lafayette, perhaps as an outsider from a different nation, Washington really finds somebody that he fully trusts, ironically and can confide in.
Lauren Roberts:
We have to acknowledge how important France was too. To the winning of the American Revolution. So having the Marquis de Lafayette as a trusted confidant of Washington, but also his connections back to his home government in France, you know, we talk about Saratoga, the victory at Saratoga as the turning point that was one of the convincing spots to get France involved, but it was also, you know, Lafayette's insistence, going back and constantly asking for supplies for men on the ground and eventually the Navy, which, of course, helps us win at Yorktown. But, but it's really, you know, it's, it's Lafayette, it's his connections, it's his persistence. It's his belief in the cause that really helped to cement that connection between the young United States and France and ultimately gets them involved in the war and allows for the Americans to become victorious.
Devin Lander:
But Lafayette did not end his involvement in the struggle for equality after the American Revolution, when he went back to France, he became involved in the French Revolution, despite the fact that he was an aristocrat again, and that the French Revolution, you know, essentially, was intended on ending the reign of aristocrats and the benefits that they had inherited through generations of wealth and and being in power, Lafayette was really a moderate in the French Revolution, and he became an advocate for a constitutional monarchy, similar to what England would would end up having. And was advocating, you know, for kind of a middle road in the French Revolution that would cede power to the people, but do so in a peaceful and kind of step by step approach when the reign of terror began, Lafayette actually becomes imprisoned and has to flee France. He's seen as a traitor by the radicals during the French Revolution as violence starts to spread against the aristocracy and members of his own wife's family are killed at the in the guillotine, and he flees with his immediate family intact and is imprisoned in Austria for several years before he is allowed to return to France.
Lauren Roberts:
It is actually Lafayette's role in the French Revolution that makes his legacy in France so complex today. And to learn more about this, we spoke with founder and president of the Lafayette trail, Inc, Julien Icher.
Julien Icher:
It is true that he entered the French Revolution conversation as a champion of freedom, surfing on the wave of popularity from his success in the American Revolution. But this dual identity is an aristocrat and a Democrat at the same time, somebody that was really mediating between public order and freedom, somebody that wanted to have a constitutional monarchy, especially after 1781 as the French Revolution spiraled out of out of control, it became very difficult for Lafayette to be heard in any of his mediation services for the new nation. And basically, he lost both the right wing and the left wing base that he once was able to talk to right so for a for a right wing, I'm going to say conservative royalist French person at the time Lafayette is a traitor, guilty of sacrilegious transgression, because he basically tells The street of Paris and of the whole country that they have unalienable natural rights that are granted from birth, that this is not something that is up to the king to bestow or take away. Everybody has a right to those rights. It's universal. And he really codified this universalism by helping to implement the Declaration of the Rights of men and of the Citizen in 1789, and that for the right wing in France at that time, it was, it was really like a transgression beyond anything that could be forgiven, because it was telling the streets the king is not a divine entity. He has no divinity.
Lauren Roberts:
In the 1820s as the United States is approaching the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution, a lot of things have changed in the country. Of course, we've we've been through the War of 1812 essentially this second America. American Revolution in the second war with Britain, and also come out victorious on that front. And in the 1820s we have some really progressive industrialization going on in the country. Notably, both the Champlain and Erie canals in New York are being finished. And so Lafayette is invited by the American government to come back to the United States on a farewell tour. Devin you mentioned before that Lafayette was only 19 when he came over in during the American Revolution, and he's the only general left at this point that is still alive and willing to come back and have this tour where people are reminded of what the American Revolution was, what they fought for. And Lafayette really brings all of those ideals in one person. And so he embarks on this farewell tour in 1824 and then again in 1825 and he is celebrated. There are parties thrown. He gives countless addresses to huge crowds all over the 24 states that in 1825 make up the United States of America. One of those places where he is celebrated in 1824, is the city of Troy, and that's the marker that we're focusing on today. And to learn about his visit in the city of Troy, we spoke with city of Troy and Rensselaer County Historian Kathy Sheehan to talk about his visit and what he did while he was here.
Kathy Sheehan:
He shows up and he is 1000s of people are greeting him at the dock in Troy. They go through great description about him. The boats are shooting off cannons and and, you know, just, you know, it's like 10,000 people. And when he finally gets to the he finally gets to the Troy house, which, if people are familiar with Troy, it's right where First Street and River Street converge. There's actually a senior Monument Square Apartments are there now. In the middle of all that, there's actually still a foundation of the Troy house is is in that and they bring him up to the second floor, and they had this amazing balcony, and, you know, and they, you know, they go through all the, you know, for General Lafayette to greet him on his happy arrival, he responds. We actually, they, it's pages and pages that were in the newspapers. I was not going to go through all that, but, but I do. Will tell you a quote of what, how he how he responded to the to the welcome. He said, I join you with I join with you in the hope that the blessings of freedom will be more generally diffused and that the bright example of America will not be lost to the nations of the earth. This city is a happy illustration of the blessings of liberty secured to you by your excellent constitution. When I was formerly in this country, there was but one house on the spot where now stands a splendid city. So he's, he's really, you know, quite taken by by the whole thing.
Lauren Roberts:
After visiting the Troy house, the Marquis de Lafayette then goes to visit Emma Willard at her school. Now, if you live in the capital region, you may know who Emma Willard is, because her school is still in existence today. But for those who don't, Kathy Sheehan tells us what an amazing woman she was.
Kathy Sheehan:
But the real adventure happens when Mrs. Willard, who is running the Troy Female Seminary, this is Emma Willard, who the school still exists today as the as the Emma Willard school. And she had all of her students. They had created this garland chain under this beautiful Arbor, and they bring Lafayette up. And he's having this, you know, just great conversation with Mrs. Mrs. Willard coming, coming into Troy, and he was quite taken by it, because it reminded all these young ladies, reminded him of his daughters, that, of course, you know, you go away for, I mean, he was away for over a year, I think, right, yeah, when that was all going on.
Devin Lander:
So as New York and the United States, really, the original 24 states that Lafayette visited, at least, were preparing and thinking about the Bicentennial that was coming up in 2024 2025 it became clear to some at least, that an organization needed to exist to kind of harness this energy around Lafayette's return his trip and the Bicentennial, as we're entering the 2/50 as we said, Lafayette came back 50 years after the American Revolution and his involvement there. So his Bicentennial of his trip happened essentially. You know, 50 years later, and as we're entering the 2/50 next year in 2026 these two events are very heavily tied together. Some historians and others look at Lafayette's visit in 2425 as being the United States first real commemoration of the American Revolution, which we now do at least every 50 years, and inarguably, every fourth of July as well. So there's a lot of commemorative interest, not only in in Lafayette when he came in 1824 and 1825 about 50 years later, in 1876 when you have essentially the first exposition in Philadelphia, which was designed to commemorate the founding of the nation as well, and then You have the 1/50 and the 1920s and the bicentennial in the 1970s and then, as we're preparing now for the semi-quin-centennial next year, Julian Ishay spoke to us about his idea for founding the Lafayette trail incorporated and the partnership with the William G. Pomeroy foundation.
Julien Icher:
So, it was just, you know, at first, it's my, once again, my passion for this country and its history and understanding the culture of the United States that promotes an ideal of Lafayette, or a memory of Lafayette so different than the French one. And you know, when I first came here, I've started to see all these, you know, ecosystem of groups that are, you know, cultivating or promoting Franco American relations in the United States and in France. And I was just excited. And I thought, you know, maybe there's something that could be done, like the tour. When I first came to the US, nobody was talking about the tour, just about and I thought, something's missing here. You know, that it, I understood, I think, that the reason why Lafayette, among all the French aristocrats that came here is the one that enjoys such an incredible lasting popularity, is because of the tour. And I said, we, can we do something more unified about that tour? Can we do something to bring this moment of American history to the forefront. So that's the genesis behind the story of the Lafayette trail. And we gathered a number of partners at the beginning, before the formation of the Lafayette trail, you got, you know, the Consulate General of France in Boston, where I started the American friends of Lafayette, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the sons of the American Revolution. And it's really showing the interest that Lafayette garnered around the ecosystem of American nonprofits. And so by April 2019 I founded the Lafayette trail as its own 501 c3, organization. And shortly thereafter, I came across the William G Pomeroy foundation and basically made a proposal, can we work together to honor Lafayette in New York? And then I said, You know what, why don't we just make a proposal for the whole country and see what happens we're in that was the answer from Bill Pomeroy and the foundation — "Let's do it."
Lauren Roberts:
In 1825, along with Lafayette's farewell tour and him visiting New York, there was something else happening in our state that was pretty monumental, and that was the opening of the completed Erie Canal. And Julian tells us it wasn't a coincidence that the Marquis de Lafayette uses the canal along his tour of New York State to help talk about the importance of progress and industrialization and the movement through not only productivity and the moving of goods, but also the moving of ideas through the canals.
Julien Icher:
You know, when he's in Washington, DC, and he's getting invited by all these western states, and you've got Dewey Clinton in New York, you know, he's communicating with Lafayette as he's in Washington, DC, the Frenchman wintering, right? He's basically saying, oh, I want to see the canal, you know, I I've got it. I could choose a route from Pittsburgh, East and goodbye, New York, right? But I'm not going to do that, because I really want to see that canal. Hell, I would like to travel in that canal, maybe, right? And I think it's because the canal was, once again a symbol. Lafayette was an absolute master understanding the power of symbols every time he could see a moment where he could leverage some sort of symbolism. You can think of the French Revolution in the beginning. You know the key of of the Bastille that he sends to George Washington or I. The tri-color cockade, all of these moments, is really showing the genius of Lafayette and his understanding of the power of symbols. And the Erie Canal falls in the same category, because for Lafayette, the Erie Canal is the manifestation of the superiority of the manners the people of the new world, in the sense that they have declared these bold principles, they have stayed true to it. And in 1824, 25 as if he travels the country, he is telling the world, not just Americans, but the world, when you institutionalize freedom, you create wealth for your people. And by visiting Western New York, he's able to see the economic prosperity that derives from institutionalizing freedom.
Lauren Roberts:
Incidentally, right now, the replica Seneca chief, which was the canal boat that took Governor DeWitt Clinton on his inaugural trip from Buffalo down to New York City, is actually on its voyage, currently heading down the Hudson River as we are recording this on its way to New York City for the wedding of the waters, which will happen on October 25 and 26th of this year, 2025 but that boat was used by Lafayette when he was here in his farewell tour.
Julien Icher:
From Black Rock to Tonawanda. Lafayette traveled on a packet boat called the Seneca chief. So talk about symbolism. Dewey Clinton, when he wants to do the wedding of the waters, what does he do? He picks the Seneca chief. I don't know if he did it because he wanted to show the canal was an American achievement, and Lafayette had used it just a few months prior. But once again, the symbol is here, and Lafayette really connects new generations of Americans. He connects the 1820s with the ideals of the American Revolution.
Lauren Roberts:
Now that 2025 the bicentennial of the 1825 farewell tour, is coming to a close, Julian and his organization are pivoting to Lafayette 250 to continue talking about the importance of Lafayette throughout the semi-quin-centennial of the American Revolution.
Julien Icher:
Lafayette250.org is kind of the new website that took over. Lafayette 2020 four.org that I deactivated because, you know, the Bicentennial is over. So, yeah, website's gone, but there's a the generic one, like the more historic Lafayette trail. Website is the Lafayette trail.org Okay, but if you go in Lafayette two fifty.org is the one basically where all the events are posted and it there are links, hyperlinks that are connecting to the Lafayette trail. Like you can access the historic market map, you can access so many of the resources the PBS documentary on Lafayette 250 so I would, yeah, I would, either way is fine, but I would, I would definitely emphasize Lafayette 250 I think that's where most of our maintenance and development work goes at this moment.
Devin Lander:
Thanks for listening to a New York minute in history. This podcast is a production of WAMC northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum With support from the William G. Pomeroy foundation. Our producer is Aaron Shellow-Lavine.
Lauren Roberts:
A big thanks to all of our guests for taking part. If you enjoyed this month's episode, please make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media to learn more about our guests and the show, check us out at WAMC podcast.org We're on x and Instagram as @NYHistoryMinute.
