Honors and memorials to the Marquis de Lafayette

Updated on Dec 18, 2024

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Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), a French aristocrat and Revolutionary War hero, was widely commemorated in the U.S. and elsewhere. Below is a list of the many homages and/or tributes named in his honor:

Honors

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

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. Portraits display Washington and Lafayette in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. Numerous towns, cities, and counties across the United States were named in his honor.

In 1834, upon Lafayette's death, 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". The Congress hung black in chambers and asked the entire country to dress in black for the next thirty days.

In 1899, Lafayette appeared with Washington on a U.S. coin, the Lafayette dollar that was 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 July 4, 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. The flag remained even during the German occupation of Paris during World War II.

In 1943, on visiting Corsica, 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.

In 1958, the Order of Lafayette was established 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.

In 2002, although he became a naturalized American citizen during his lifetime, Lafayette was granted honorary United States citizenship by the United States Congress.

Military and maritime

Several warships were named after Lafayette:

The French Navy acquired USS Langley in 1951 and renamed it La Fayette.

Lafayette is a modern stealth frigate is also named after him.

La Fayette is also the name of a ship class.

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

Counties, cities, streets and squares

City of Fayetteville in North Carolina. While many cities are named after Lafayette, Fayetteville was the first, and holds the distinction of being the only one he actually visited, arriving in Fayetteville by horse-drawn carriage in 1825 during Lafayatte's visit to the United States from July 1824 to September 1825 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill

City of Lafayette in California

City of Lafayette in Indiana. It is the county seat of Tippecanoe County and the home of Purdue University. The city was named after Lafayette during his tour of America.

City of Lafayette in Louisiana

County of Lafayette in Arkansas

Lafayette Square in Buffalo, New York, where he spoke during his nationwide tour in 1825.

Lafayette Square, in Washington, D.C.

Lafayette Square in Saint Louis, Missouri

Lafayette Park in Saint Louis, Missouri was created in 1833 as one of the first public parks created in the City of Saint Louis and was named in his honor in 1854.

Mount Lafayette, a mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Streets

Many streets around the United States (and abroad) are named for Lafayette, including:

Lafayette Street in New Haven, Connecticut

Lafayette Street in Williston Park

Lafayette Street in Manhattan

New York City has five Lafayette Streets, one in each borough, as well as a Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn.

Lafayette Road in New Hampshire that extends from the Massachusetts border in Seabrook to Portsmouth

Avenue de Lafayette is located in the Downtown Crossing section of Boston.

Lafayette Avenue in Baltimore.

Lafayette Boulevard in Bridgeport, Connecticut

Lafayette Road in Harrington Park, New Jersey

Lafayette Street in Cape May, New Jersey

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.

Lafayette in sculpture

Lafayette Bust by Houdon, 1789, now at Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Statue by Bartholdi in Union Square Park, Manhattan, New York, 1876

Pediment on the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, Lafayette, Indiana, 1882

Lafayette on the Green, University of Vermont, 1883

LaFayette Fountain by Lorado Taft in Lafayette, Indiana, 1887

Statue in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., 1891.

Statue of Lafayette and Washington by Bartholdi, Place des États-Unis (United States Plaza), Paris, France, 1895

Equestrian statue by Paul Wayland Bartlett, 1908, Cours-la-Reine, Paris. An early version appears on the Lafayette dollar.

Built in 1975, a statue of Lafayette stands atop a fountain in the courthouse square in LaGrange, Georgia.

Equestrian statue by Paul Bartlett, Metz, France 1919, destroyed by German occupation forces and replaced by another statue by M . Goutin in 2004

Statue of Lafayette on Union Avenue & Warren Street in Havre de Grace, Maryland, 1976

Life-size statue of Lafayette on the University of Vermont campus green, Burlington, Vermont, 1883

Equestrian statue in front of the Washington Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, 1924

Statue outside of the Gen. Horatio Gates House and Golden Plough Tavern, York, Pennsylvania, 2007

Statue on Washington Street in Hartford, CT. Sculptor, Paul Wayland Bartlett. Date of Dedication: 09/21/1957. The original of this statue stands in the Louvre, a gift to France from the school children of the United States.

Works cited

Kowsky, Francis R., Mark Goldman, Austin Fox, John D. Randall, Jack Quinan, and Teresa Lasher (1982). Buffalo Architecture: A Guide (Third printing ed.). The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-02172-2. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)

Clary, David (2007). Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-80435-5.

Gaines, James R. (2007). For Liberty and Glory: Washington, La Fayette, and Their Revolutions. W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-06138-3.

References

Honors and memorials to the Marquis de Lafayette Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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