Did you know we’re in a bicentennial year? From now until September, 2025, historical sites in the nation’s first 24 states will be commemorating the Marquis de Lafayette’s Farewell Tour. Planned as a three-month tour, Lafayette was celebrated by all as the “Nation’s Guest” for 13 months. Honestly, it amazes me how Lafayette Fever swept the nation in the 1800s, with crowds thronging to catch a glimpse of the French nobleman who aided the American cause against Great Britain. For comparison’s sake, 4000 people greeted The Beatles in NYC but 80,000 turned out for Lafayette there! I’ve come across a few theories to explain this phenomenon, which took place fifty years after the Revolution. One says that Lafayette was the swashbuckling symbol of France’s role in securing independence, and Americans were still deeply grateful. Another holds that Lafayette basked in the American reverence for George Washington as his de facto adopted son. (Lafayette even named his son Georges Louis Gilbert Washington de Motier Marquis de Lafayette). The theory that rings most true for me is that Lafayette’s farewell tour coincided with the vitriolic presidential election of 1824, in which, for the first time, no founding father was running. Perhaps the country was demonstrating a nostalgia and reverence for the past and nervousness about the future, as author Sarah Vowel stated in an interview.If you’re like me, Lafayette’s place in our history is more legendary than factual. The opening paragraph a New Yorker story from 2021 summed up my sketchy understanding:Lafayette, like Betsy Ross and Johnny Appleseed, is so neatly fixed in the American imagination that it is hard to see him as a human being. Betsy sews stars, Johnny plants trees, Lafayette brings French élan to the American Revolution. He is, in the collective imagination, little more than a wooden soldier with a white plume on his cocked hat. In the original production of “Hamilton,” Daveed Diggs portrayed him affectionately, with a comically heavy French accent and an amorous manner—a hero, yes, but of the cartoon kind, a near relation of Pepé le Pew. Allison Epstein wrote a most entertaining sketch of the marquis in her hilarious newsletter, Dirtbags Through the Ages. When Allison can’t criticize someone, take note. I must leave you to dig into Lafayette’s extraordinary international escapades on your own while we focus on his stops along the Ohio River in this month’s trivia. Note to my fabulous new subscribers:Monthly trivia is for sport. It’s not a test. Only the rare person can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.QUESTIONS* When Lafayette visited Old Shawneetown, Illinois, it was simply called Shawneetown. Why do we call it Old Shawneetown today?* Remember Illinois’ salt industry from last month’s trivia? When Congress granted the salines to Illinois, the state ran the operation using the unpaid labor of enslaved workers who lived in what was then-Shawneetown. After the Emancipation Proclamation, these workers fled, making it a ghost town that eventually came to be called Old Shawneetown.* After a 15-foot flood in 1937, only 20 of Shawneetown’s 400 homes were habitable. Most Shawneetown residents moved three miles inland from the Ohio River, and took the name with them. The remaining section of the original settlement was incorporated as Old Shawneetown in 1956. The town operates several historic sites to this day. * As we’ve discussed before, Marietta, Ohio, was named for Queen Marie Antoinette. Did Lafayette personally know her? Choose the BEST answer.* Lafayette’s relationship with the queen was fodder for the French Revolution. The political club known as the Jacobins advocated for the violent overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. There were two factions of Jacobins, and the The Montagnards were the most radical. Their leader, Maximillian Robespierre, published “proof” of a long-running affair between Lafayette and the queen in a series of illustrated pamphlets. * In 1789, revolutionary fever was spreading throughout France. Lafayette was named the commander of the National Guard. On October 5, a hungry Parisian mob descended on the palace of Versailles, demanding bread. As the crowd shouted angrily at the unpopular queen, Lafayette kissed her hand on a balcony. Lafayette's charm may well have saved the king and queen on that day, though they would not, of course, survive the revolution.* Lafayette named his youngest daughter Marie Antoinette Virginie to honor both the French queen and the state of Virginia. He did so at the behest of Thomas Jefferson.* Lafayette’s Farewell Tour included a visit to Marietta on May 8, 1825. Which is true about that visit? More than one may apply.* It was not on his original itinerary.* A...
