Honors and memorials to the Marquis de Lafayette

There are large numbers of tributes to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.

Honors

Further information: Lafayette (disambiguation)
Monument to Lafayette in Paris

American President Andrew Jackson ordered that Lafayette be accorded the same funeral honors as John Adams and George Washington. Therefore, 24-gun salutes were fired from military posts and ships, each shot representing a U.S. state. Flags flew at half mast for thirty-five days, and "military officers wore crepe for six months".[1][2] The Congress hung black in chambers and asked the entire country to dress in black for the next thirty days.[3]

U.S. Postage Stamp, 1957 issue, 3c, commemorating 200th anniversary of the birth of La Fayette

Lafayette was widely commemorated in the U.S. In 1824, the U.S. government named Lafayette Park in his honor; it lies immediately north of the White House in Washington, D.C. In 1826, Lafayette College was chartered in Easton, Pennsylvania. Lafayette was honored with a monument in New York City in 1917.[4] Portraits display Washington and Lafayette in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.[5] Numerous towns, cities, and counties across the United States were named in his honor.

Lafayette appears with Washington on a U.S. coin, the Lafayette dollar. Minted in 1899 (though showing the year 1900), it was produced to raise money for a statue of him that was erected in Paris.

On 4 July 1917, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, Colonel Charles E. Stanton visited the grave of Lafayette and uttered the famous phrase "Lafayette, we are here." After the war, a U.S. flag was permanently placed at the grave site. Every year, on Independence Day, the flag is replaced in a joint French-American ceremony.[6] The flag remained even during the German occupation of Paris during World War II. On visiting Corsica in 1943, General George S. Patton commented on how the Free French forces had liberated the birthplace of Napoleon, and promised that the Americans would liberate the birthplace of Lafayette.

Although he became a naturalized American citizen during his lifetime,[7][8][9] Lafayette was granted honorary United States citizenship by Congress in 2002.[10] The Order of Lafayette was established in 1958 by U.S. Representative Hamilton Fish III, a World War I veteran, to promote Franco-American friendship and to honor Americans who fought in France. The frigate Hermione, in which Lafayette returned to America, has been reconstructed in the port of Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, France.[11]

The aircraft carrier USS Langley was renamed La Fayette by France

Several warships were named after Lafayette. The French Navy acquired USS Langley in 1951 and renamed it La Fayette. A modern stealth frigate is also named after Lafayette, and is also the name of a ship class, La Fayette.

The French ocean-liner SS Normandie was to be the troopship USS Lafayette after being acquired by the US Government, but was destroyed by a fire before conversion to the new role was completed. The name was later given to a ballistic missile submarine.

The city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, is named after General Lafayette. While many cities are named after Lafayette, Fayetteville was the first and holds the distinction of being the only one he actually visited. He arrived in Fayetteville by horse-drawn carriage in 1825.

The cities of Lafayette, Louisiana and Lafayette, California are also named after him.

James McHenry, whom Lafayette considered a good friend, built a country seat on 95 acres and named it Fayetteville in his honor. He purchased it in 1792 from a tract called Ridgely's Delight about a mile west of Baltimore.[12]

Lafayette, the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana and site of Purdue University, was named after him. It is also noted as the only town named after General Lafayette during his lifetime, named during his tours of America.

Lafayette Park, one of the first public parks created in 1833 by the City of Saint Louis, Missouri, was named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette in 1854.

Many streets around the United States are named for Lafayette, such as Lafayette Street in New Haven, Connecticut, Lafayette Street in Williston Park and Lafayette Street (Manhattan). New York City actually has five Lafayette Streets, one in each borough, as well as a Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. US 1 in New Hampshire, from the Massachusetts border in Seabrook to Portsmouth, is named Lafayette Road. Avenue de Lafayette is located in the Downtown Crossing section of Boston. Lafayette Avenue in Baltimore is also named to honor him. There are also Lafayette Boulevard in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lafayette Road in Harrington Park, New Jersey and Lafayette Street in Cape May, New Jersey. There is a Lafayette Street in Waltham, Massachusetts located near a critical area during the Revolution.

Ulice Lafayettova ("Lafayette Street") in Olomouc, Czech Republic, is near the site of Lafayette's imprisonment.

Mount Lafayette, a mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is named in honor of General Lafayette. Lafayette re-visited New Hampshire and all the other states in an extremely popular, triumphal tour during 1824–1825, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The Lafayette Escadrille was an escadrille of the French Air Service during World War I composed largely of American volunteer pilots.

Lafayette in sculpture

References

  1. ↑ Gaines, p. 448
  2. ↑ Clary, p. 448
  3. ↑ Clary, p. 449
  4. ↑ "Marquis de Lafayette". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. 7 March 2002. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  5. ↑ Ike Skelton (22 May 2007). "House Record: Honoring The Marquis De Lafayette On The Occasion Of The 250th Anniversary Of His Birth: Section 29". GovTrack.us. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  6. ↑ "Lafayette and the American Flag: The Fourth of July Ceremony". Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Speare, Morris Edmund "Lafayette, Citizen of America", New York Times, 7 September 1919. The article contains a facsimile and transcript of the Maryland act: " An Act to naturalize Major General the Marquiss de la Fayette and his Heirs Male Forever. ... Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland—that the Marquiss de la Fayette and his Heirs male forever shall be and they and each of them are hereby deemed adjudged and taken to be natural born Citizens of this State and shall henceforth be instilled to all the Immunities, Rights and Privileges of natural born Citizens thereof, they and every one of them conforming to the Constitution and Laws of this State in the Enjoyment and Exercise of such Immunities, Rights and Privileges."
  8. ↑ Folliard, Edward T. "JFK Slipped on Historical Data In Churchill Tribute" Sarasota Journal, 25 May 1973.
  9. ↑ Cornell, Douglas B. "Churchill Acceptance 'Honors Us Far More'" Sumter Daily Item, 10 April 1963.
  10. ↑ Public Law 107-209
  11. ↑ Robert Kalbach. "L'Hermione". L'Hermione (in French). L’association Hermione-La Fayette. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  12. ↑ Bernard Christian Steiner (1907). The life and correspondence of James McHenry: Secretary of War under Washington and Adams. The Burrows Brothers Company.
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