Big Moves & Intimate Gestures: Why Lafayette's Approach to Equality Has Meant So Much To So Many

Image: Detail from Lafayette’s 1824 gift to the Brinkerhoff family of a bureau.

1 Courtesy Fishkill Historical Society.

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Big Moves & Intimate Gestures: Why Lafayette’s Approach to Equality Has Meant so Much to So Many A draft concept by Bill Jeffway bill.jeffway@dchsny.org

The goal here is to provide a rough concept to being to address the question: Can we make the 200th anniversary of the local visit of Lafayette to Dutchess and Columbia Counties relevant to today?

The images do not have captions. They are developed as potential slides in a presentation and are shown just as general reference. ©Bill Jeffway 2023

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Navigating a Diverse World: Truth. Big Moves & Intimate Gestures ………………..

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Dutchess and Columbia: Crossroads of Diversity

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The Established and Well-to-do

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White Working Class Protestants

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Free and Enslaved Blacks

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Indigenous Peoples

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After death: Invocation of Lafayette in Irish Catholic Immigrant Debate ………………..

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20th Century: Women, World War One, & World War Two

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What & How Shall We Remember in September of 2024?

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The 1824 to 1825 Tour: The End of the Era of Good Feeling

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Big Moves & Intimate Gestures: Why Lafayette’s Approach to Equality Has Meant so Much to So Many In September of 1824, the French, aging, American Revolutionary War Major General Lafayette was greeted in the mid-Hudson Valley’s Dutchess and Columbia Counties (as elsewhere in his national tour) by crowds of unprecedented historic size. We believe understanding the greatly varied aspirations and motivations of those in the crowd, can inspire us to meet challenges today.

Newspapers in 1824 and 1825 described the record turnout of well wishers for what ended up being a thirteen-month, twenty-four-state farewell tour. Invited by Congress at the instigation of President Monroe, Lafayette was referred to as the nation's guest. He was the last surviving general of the 1776 American Revolution, having earned the rank at the age of 19.

The scale of the turnout of audiences meant that the great and growing diversity of the early United States was well represented, we refer to diversity of race, faith, gender, national origin, social and economic class, among others. In instances where that diversity was lacking, for example when he visited Utica New York and found no Indigenous Peoples invited, he insisted they be invited.

We believe it is the great diversity of people who came to invoke his name, or pin their hopes and aspirations on his example, that makes him stand out with such relevance today. You will see how this has happened with free and enslaved Blacks, with working class White Protestants, with Indigenous Peoples, with women, even after Lafayette’s death with the brand new issue of impoverished Irish Catholic immigrants.

Today, with July 4th, 2026 on the horizon, we are approaching the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding in the way that two-hundred years ago we were approaching its 50th anniversary on July 4th, 1826. As you will see, the desire to find and experience a common national purpose through the tour by Lafayette held great value for a country that was beginning to work to accommodate equal seats at an increasingly diverse American table. The dynamics at play in the 1824 invitation to Lafayette – for example the balance between a national standard versus a flexible state approach, which at the time was a divide over a national right to own human beings as property and enslave others – understanding the underlying dynamics may prompt us to benefit from Lafayette’s example today.

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The End of the Era of Good Feelings The period of the two terms of US President James Monroe, from 1816 to 1824, were described at the time and referred by historians today as the Era of Good Feelings because of an apparent lack of divisiveness. With the benefit of hindsight we know that the US was a generation away from its deadliest war, the US Civil War which saw the death of 2% of its population, the equivalent of 7 million people today.

It is not so much that feelings changed. If you had asked an enslaved Black man, woman or child, or an Indigenous Person dispossessed of their land, or working-class men who could not afford to own property and were therefore denied the right to vote, or women who could perhaps afford to own property but were legally denied the right independent of their husbands, they would not have described the Era as completely and utterly and completely as good as it can be.

A skeptical article in the 1822 Dutchess Observer pointed out the flaw in the argument saying such a claim is made only if we [surrender] to one eighth of the population of this country, the power and triumphs achieved by the …rest.” The voices of the 7/8ths of the population increasingly expected to be heard, and increasingly sought out the American Dream. And Lafayette was a symbol and inspiration and source of strength.

The 1824 US Presidential election was contentious and close. No candidate got enough electoral college votes so the election went to the US House of Representatives where John Quincy Adams won by one vote. Four years later, in the same match-up, Andrew Jackson won the Presidency.

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There are not too many people, especially of foreign birth and nationality, who made their mark as a leading American Patriot in the Revolutionary War of the late 18th century, whose name persists as much as Revolutionary War Major General Lafayette.

Locally we find either his name, or the name of his French estate, LaGrange, at almost every turn. A northern Dutchess County hamlet, tavern and post office was named for him as is a New York State recreation area. The town of Freedom changed its name to LaGrange in 1829.

Beacon, Poughkeepsie and Fishkill have streets named for him. Lafayette is the name of Poughkeepsie’s American Legion Post. Parents from all walks of life named their sons for him.

Lafayette’s visit to Dutchess and Columbia County took place almost within a month of his arrival to the U.S. Traveling on the steamboat James Kent on a trip from New York City to Albany and back, he was in Newburgh the evening of September 15th, and arrived mid-stream offshore from Poughkeepsie the early morning of the 16th where he participated in a public parade before a private visit to Gov. Lewis in Staatsburg. By the evening of the 16th he had arrived at Clermont where an enormous ball welcomed his overnight stay into the morning of the 17th when he stopped at Catskill and Hudson before reaching Albany the same day. He made three private visits on his return to New York City a few days later on the 19th.

Navigating a Diverse World: Truth. Big Moves & Intimate Gestures The importance of truth for Lafayette is revealing. Toward the end of his life, with the accumulated wisdom and hard experience of both the American and French revolutions, he advised us to not stray from the truth. He said that moderation is not the average between two points, but a firm grip of the truth. He said, “When it is said that four and four make eight and an extravagant person pretends that it makes ten, is it more reasonable to maintain that four and four make nine? No, true moderation is discovering what is true, and firmly abiding by it.” Perhaps there was no more profound implication of this adherence to truth than in statements of inclusiveness such as all are created equal, or with liberty and justice for all. For Lafayette, all meant all. That is what we feel you will see repeatedly as we track his life and tour.

He is called the Man of Two Worlds given his consequential role in the American Revolution of 1776 – and in the French Revolution from the end of the following decade. Both deposed a king. Although that was not his intention in the French 8

revolution. The combination of his aristocratic family and democratic values were harder to navigate in the old world, where he spent five years in prison. Other aristocratic families suffered a much worse, and deadly fate at the guillotine.

But, as you will see, throughout his life he complimented his big bold moves with a persistent almost infinite number of small, intimate gestures: writing a few words of support, tipping his hat, or bowing in respect and recognition, with extraordinary consequences. We believe this is in part what made him so effective, so consequential. Because Lafayette operated on two levels simultaneously, through a combination of big moves on the world stage – and the small, intimate gestures to individual persons.

Lewis Hayden

Lafayette’s show of respect to Marie Antoinette was successful in calming a crowd – at least for the moment – that was clamoring for her death.

The well-known Black abolitionist Lewis Hayden said that he was a fourteen year old enslaved boy in Kentucky in 1825 watching Lafayette bow in respect to him as Lafayette went past in a parade. Taking a moment to realize the honor could only have been directed at him…he said that from that day forward he was motivated to become the great abolitionist and national voice that he became…serving in the Massachusetts State Senate.

Lafayette was aware of the power of a personal gesture and did not waste any opportunity to take advantage of it. And all meant all.

We wonder if Lafayette's understanding of the connection of big moves and small, intimate gestures might stem from a childhood where the great antipathy between France and England was more than a distant diplomatic concept. Lafayette was only 2 years old when his father was killed by a British cannon ball in France’s battle with England. Lafayette learned early on that global dynamics had very personal consequences. And vice versa.

Often described as a process toward a more perfect union, the radical idea articulated in 1776 that all are created equal was far from immediately achieved and is always a work in progress.

The great diversity of this strategic location in the mid Hudson Valley is the perfect opportunity 9

to better understand what those with ambition for equality saw in Lafayette. Within these borders in the period of the early republic and before, you can find a great diversity of people at greatly varying degrees of success in coming to realize the American dream that all are created equal, and are entitled to liberty and justice for all.

If you were an enslaved man, woman or child in New York State when Lafayette arrived for his

tour, you knew that the abolition of slavery in the state was scheduled to end three years later, July 4th 1827.

It wasn’t until 1870, however, after the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th US Constitutional Amendment that Blacks were freed from enslavement nationally, guaranteed citizenship and guaranteed equal protection under the law. Abolitionist leaders like Frederick Douglass had to turn their energies into fighting pushback and work-arounds that wanted to thwart the guarantees that were won at such a cost.

By contrast, women who were seeking equal rights to vote would need to work into the next century – until 1917 to gain the right to vote in New York State, and until 1919 to gain the right to vote nationally. Abolitionists both Black and White, and Women’s suffrage groups, invoked Lafayette’s name throughout their campaigns for equality.

Dutchess and Columbia: Crossroads of Diversity For thousands of years before European contact and the arrival of Henry Hudson just over four hundred years ago, there was a confluence or mosaic of Indigenous Peoples, with the vast Mohican living from the area to the north, the Wappinger in the area and to the south, and eastern woodland nations to the east, among who emerged were the Schaghticoke. From the south, west, and north, Dutch and English settlers arrived largely from the early 1700s and both the very 10

wealthy and moderately well to do owned slaves, in built up areas, and especially and even in rural farming communities. Starting in 1728 Quakers from New England, Nantucket and Long Island, formed what would become the largest Quaker population outside of Philadelphia.

Initially Quakers were slave owners locally, as elsewhere. There is a documented instance of a Quaker from Dutchess County illegally selling a free Black man into enslavement in 1768. He was ejected for life, but the Black man had died. A Dutchess County meeting was the location of the emergence of what became a national prohibition of slave owning among Friends. They evolved as a community with outspoken abolitionist views. There is no better example of the proximity of diversity within the borders of Dutchess and Columbia County than the Town of Hyde Park. In that town in the early 19th century, lived James K Paulding, an outspoken proslavery national voice on a great river estate in the west of the town. In the east of the town lived the Degarmos. At the Crum Elbow meeting house, father and daughter emerged as national voices for the abolition of slavery, and women’s suffrage. In-between, in the curve of the Crum Elbow creek, lived a vibrant free Black community where the recently freed, and the selfemancipated, created a propertied class that grew economically, politically and socially.

The late Dr. A.J. Williams-Myers was a prominent Professor Emeritus of Black Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz.. Dr. Williams-Meyers and spoke and wrote a great deal about such free Black communities explaining, “Free Africans with their landholdings in rural areas … carved out that ‘social space’ for themselves and family… They created caring, nurturing, and religious communities up and down the Hudson Valley, [and Long Island and New Jersey]. Many of them were mixed communities of African, European, and Native American 11

descendants. Because they were caring communities, free of racial strife, interracial couples were attracted to them. They were steadfast in weakening the molding of a materially dispossessed and dependent African by nurturing a materially affluent African.” There were a good many such communities locally of varying size and duration.

Even on the issue of American Independence, the area was split.

Many estimates put the number of Loyalists in Dutchess County at 60%. And the area sat as a strategic target between British occupied NYC and British Canada, so Lafayette would have been familiar with the area given its outsized role in the American Revolution.

The Established and Well-to-do Let's now look specifically at the 1824 local tour of Lafayette through the eyes of the diverse people who would have been in the audience. The commencement of the Hudson Valley tour started with a grand fet in New York City at Castle Garden. Here we see an invitation to that event from Dutchess County Historical Society collections. You will notice the name of “General Fish” who is Nicolas Fish, who will be profiled later.

Lafayette's reputation among the elite and established was absolutely secure, whether it was his aristocratic family background… or big plays like the sheer scale of personal wealth he gave to the American cause, or his persuading the King of France to contribute that nation’s money, armaments, ships and men. Above all, it would have been the signal from George Washington's sincere affection for him, frequently described as the affection a father has for a son, that would have ensured the highest respect from the new country’s elite.

The Freemasons emerged as the leading fraternal organization in the nation and Lafayette was a big player among them. This from DCHS Collections is the 1780 Masonic Certificate of Nicholas Fish from the Poughkeepsie Lodge, Solomon’s Number One. Fish figured prominently in the Revolutionary War, he was the youngest commissioned Major at the age of 18 – and was a close friend of Alexander Hamilton and Lafayette. He, with the help of his teenage son, Hamilton Fish, had a high profile in the local visit of Lafayette at New York City and in Poughkeepsie in particular. We will see how Fish’s family, to this day, remembers him relative to Lafayette’s 1824 visit.

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Lafayette was formally received by the Masons everywhere he visited. During his 13-month visit he became a Royal Arch Mason and remains the man who received more Masonic honors than any other Freemason before or since.

Other big plays involved Lafayette’s involvement in founding the elite hereditary Society of the Cincinnati, what is today the nation’s oldest patriotic organization. At the end of the Revolutionary War in May of 1783 with the endorsement of Washington, officers met at a dinner at the Verplank House, Mount Gulian, the headquarters of Major General von Steuben in Fishkill, which stands today as a museum, and created the organization for officers and their descendants.

George Washington personally charged Lafayette with creating an active membership in France which was quickly done among the generals, colonels and admirals of French forces who served.

Lafayette’s visit to the river estates of the most elite and influential families in the nation, included in Staatsburg, Governor Morgan Lewis’s estate; in Red hook, Major John R. Livingston’s Massena and Janet Livingston Montgomery’s Montgomery Place; and in Clermont in Columbia County, Robert Livingston's Clermont estate. No other family was as well represented as the Livingstons as orators in his public reception or as a private host. On the return portion he stopped at JP DeWint’s estate in Fishkill in particular to meet with Dewint’s wife, Caroline Amelia Smith, the grand-daughter of President John Adams.

We talked about the big moves among the elite, let’s look at three examples of intimate gestures that we feel help us begin to understand what is distinct about Lafayette, from the perspective of those in the audience and how they experienced Lafayette.

The first relates to extraordinary care he took, in this instance, with young ladies who passed by him in an organized procession at the home of Gov. Morgan Lewis at Staatsburg.

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Lafayette would have been aware of the potential of stories of his meeting to passed along to future generations, a point made expressly by Colonel Henry A. Livingston, as he stood on the balcony of Forbus house on Poughkeepsie’s Market Street.

No clear images of Forbus house exist but the site was long the site of landmark inns with balconies for political rallies, the precise site became the site that Franklin Roosevelt chose more than a century later to give the final campaign address of each of his four historic, successful Presidential campaigns.

So in1824, at what had been, and would continue to be, an historic gathering site of important political events, Livingston addressed the massive crowd from the second floor balcony and said, and I quote, “The children who are mixed among [these crowds] will tell their children that on this day, they beheld and blessed their country’s benefactor, and friend.”

One such child was a twelve-year old girl named Elizabeth Conklin. She was among those who approached Lafayette in an orderly reception line, we know this because her son testified to his mother’s telling and telling of the story. In 1916 Rhinebeck’s John Howard Brown reported in local papers, and I quote,. “I heard repeatedly the story from my mother’s lips that the gallant Frenchman not only took [her and] each [young girl] by the hand, but even stooped to kiss each of them as they passed him.” Such extra care, for 13 months! We can’t be surprised Lafayette was often running behind schedule!

Another extraordinary and intimate event among the elite took place in the middle of the river as Lafayette was going from Staatsburg to Clermont.

Rhinbeck’s Henry Beekman Livingston was controversial all his life. He had troubled relationships during his service in the Revolutionary War. Soon after he married, his wife sued for divorce. Affairs generated children out of wedlock. Henry Beekman Livingston was not invited to the great ball that Lafayette was about to attend. But he approached Lafayette’s boat unannounced, where he was received with an embrace and great affection by Lafayette. After some time, Henry went back on his boat and Lafayette proceeded to the Livingston ball.

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It was time for a major and exceptional event at Clermont. You have seen the prominence of the Livingston family, and here was among all the Hudson River estates of the Livingstons’ the most grand.

From Smith’s 1876 history of Dutchess County we learn, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, when she reached Clermont, the manor house of Chancellor Livingston, of revolutionary memory. On landing, the General was received by a large body of FreeMasons, and was escorted by a military company from Hudson to the beautiful lawn in front of the manor house, where the General was warmly welcomed by the Master of the Lodge in an appropriate speech. The afternoon was uncommonly beautiful. The scene and its associations were exceedingly impressive. Dinner was served in a green-house or orangery, which formed a sort of balcony to the Southern exposure of the manor house. When evening came, variegated lamps suspended from the orange trees were lighted, producing a beautiful and wonderfully brilliant effect. But the grand even of the occasion was the ball, which was opened by General LaFayette, leading the graceful, blind widow of Gen. Montgomery, - who fell in the assault of Quebec, 1775 - amidst the wildest enthusiasm of all present.

A final example of a small gesture Lafayette could affect among the established families has to do with his stop at Fishkill Landing on his return to New York City.. Lafayette was known to be generous with fine gifts on his tour. He gave the captain of the ship that brought him to the United States “an elegant portable writing desk” of mahogany, rosewood and polished brass that

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he purchased in New York City. At West Point he gave a clock to the director, which can be seen today.

The desk shown here was made by a high end New York City craftsman Haines & Holmes. Until recently based on only oral tradition without any source material, Brinkerhoff family oral tradition held that it was a gift to the family from Lafayette during his September 1824 visit as a thank you for taking care of him during a life-threatening illness in October of 1778.

Shown here in 2013 are the Fishkill Historical Society enthusiasts who accepted the gift from the Brinckerhoff family, in memory of Beverly and Todd Brinkerhoff. It is now on display at the Van Wyck Homestead Museum.

Very recent research by both the Fishkil and Dutchess County Historical Societies, including the location and confirming identification of the maker's mark, all suggest this oral tradition is true.

Finally, what could be a more intimate gesture in return, from the admiring audience than naming a child for Lafayette. What return sign of respect could be more intimate than that?

Fishkill’s Ludington family of patriots included Sybil Ludington who is known as the woman who, like Paul Revere, made an all-night horseback ride 40 miles to rally patriots after the burning of Danbury Connecticut by the British. Documents show that in 1793 the Ludington's named their son deLafayette Ludington he went on to become a minister.

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White Working Class Protestants Lafayette was certainly admired by the common man and woman. The unprecedented size of the audiences assures us of that. Great public parades and receptions took place at Poughkeepsie and Hudson, and a few minutes' stop in Greene County’s Catskill, which would have given the average man, woman and child the opportunity to see and honor the nation's guest from the roadside, and from windows and rooftops.

In 1824 America, however, White working class Protestants were still working on gaining equal rights, where property ownership requirements for voting, and imprisonment for debt, they argued, worked unfairly against them.

The property ownership requirement for voting was eliminated in New York State in 1821, but was retained for Black men, and Black men only. That requirement remained in place until after the Civil War. The working class, more broadly known at the time as mechanics, could be found as tenant farmers based on the old manorial system of England. As late as the 1840s, especially in Columbia County, there were anti-rent activists fighting for the end of the old landlord and tenant 17

farmer system. The working class were skilled men and women, they were found in hamlets and towns working as blacksmiths, shoemakers, and general laborers.

But their feeling of unequal treatment and access was expressed loudly. The local political leaders decried their situation as, and I quote, “that of seven thousand landless slaves,” as reported in a local newspaper at the time. They achieved the abolition of debtors' prison in New York State in 1831, and the maximum 10-hour workday in 1840. Free public education was a work in progress. Many in this group saw in Lafayette an unfulfilled aspiration.

Shortly after Lafayette’s visit, the Working Men's Party emerged in 1827 and grew into a large political movement called the Mechanics political movement. Although we can not draw a direct line between Lafayette and the Working Men's Party, we can get pretty close when we look at the company Lafayette kept.

Fanny Wright was a Scottish-born radical advocate for the abolition of slavery, equal opportunity for women, and working class rights. She met Lafayette in 1821 when she sought him out at his estate, LaGrange, in France, and they quickly became close. She accompanied Lafayette on much, though not all of his 1824 to 1825 tour.

Lafayette included her in his most important visits, like his stay at Monticello to stay with Thomas Jefferson. Lafayette and Wright were close.

Fanny Wright became so aligned to the Working Men's Party that the party became known as the Fanny Wright party, and its candidates Fanny Wright men.

Not so long after the tour, by 1830 on July 4th in Poughkeepsie Fanny Wright was being toasted along with George Washington and Lafayette. But unfortunately for her, she was toasted in a mocking way because among her radical views on freedom and liberty, was an advocacy for “free love” which advocated for, among other things, the right of unmarried women to bear children and become mothers.

So the White, Protestant, working class in the audience that day would have been men and women who saw in Lafayette, the hope of their ultimate inclusiveness in the promise that all are created equal and liberty and justice is meant for all. Who was in the audience from this class of American?

The Poughkeepsie Telegraph reported, at the same time and place referenced earlier at Forbus house, and I quote “We observed among [the crowd] an old revolutionary soldier bearing the 18

marks of poverty and hardship, but whom the general recognized. And it was gratifying to see with what cordiality they shook hands. The old soldier was obliged to yield to the pressure of the crowd and passed off with his eyes sparkling and his countenance lighted up, and was evidently inspired with a new glow of life.”

The fondness of the common man and woman for Lafayette is reflected in a look at the local directories from the 1800s clearly indicating many working class parents named their sons Lafayette, sons who went on to be truckmen, sash makers, blacksmiths, farmers and general laborers.

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Free and Enslaved Blacks When Lafayette stepped on shore at the landings of the Hudson Valley he was stepping into a slave state that did not abolish slavery until 1827. The general perception of Lafayette in the Black community, both free and enslaved, would have been very positive. They saw in him as an abolitionist and rights advocate in both words and deeds, in both big moves & intimate gestures.

Among his big moves was his purchase of an island, and enslaved persons to create a model for abolition. Pro-slavery advocates said abolition would create economic and social chaos. In 1786 Lafayette wrote to Washington boldly asking him to join him as a partner in this project.Washington politely but firmly rejected the offer. Shown here is the publishing of that letter in Frederick Douglass’ North Star in1849, which we referenced earlier.

Another big move and one of the of the stories an Black man, woman or child would have been likely to know, is Lafayette’s trust and deployment of a Virgina enslaved Black man (with permission from his owner) named James Armisted during the Revolutionary War – into the most sensitive and difficult of intelligence roles. Armisted acted as double-agent among the highest levels of the British military. After his service, Armisted was returned to enslavement and his petition for freedom and pension was denied for his lacking a combat role.

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Incredulous,in 1785 Lafayette penned words of testimony to the Virginia Assembly noting Armistead’s patriotism and contribution. No doubt aware that many claimed Armisted was of a race that was inferior intellectually, Lafayette seems to have put special emphasis on the sophistication of Armisted’s intelligence work.

During his tour in 1825, Lafayette sought out and physically embraced Armistead who by then had, out of respect, taken the name James Armisted Lafayette, Here we find a great example of the cycle of big moves and intimate gestures that made Lafayette’s approach to equality so distinct, powerful, and enduring.

Who were the enslaved Blacks who could have been in the audience or in service in a private estate during Lafayette’s local visit? We do not know for sure, but there are some distinct possibilities.

We know a good deal about Sally Schermerhorn Gilson in part because of the high regard Janet Livingston Montgomery and her family had for her over many years, ensuring she was taken care of later in life, along with her son, the renowned botanist Alexander Gilson. Both mother and son had important roles at Montgomery Place. Sally Gilson came to own property in Rhinebeck in the 1830s. She would have been 21 years old at the time of Lafayette’s visit. So we include her as a candidate among possibilities of those either in the audience, or possibly even in service to the event.

Similarly, without direct evidence, other than the likelihood of her living in the area at the time, we know of a woman enslaved to the Livingstons only by the name Charlotte. She is described 21

as having lived in a cabin at a large lake near the Livingston estate. This lake was named for her and called Lake Charlotte, until it was sold by Livingston descendants in 1929 to New York State on the condition that the name would be changed to Lake Taghjabick in perpetuity, or the gift would be revoked. Could Charlotte could have been in the audience or among the household staff serving Lafayette?

Who were the free Blacks who could have been in the audience?

Andrew Frazier is at the top of our list of prospects. He served in the Revolutionary War and earned a pension late in life. He built up sizable tracts of farmland in the town of Milan. He lived to be over 100 years old, and was known as the ancestor given the great number of descendants who continued the tradition of military service (at least one of his descendants fought in every major war through and including World War Two).

Thomas and Jane Williams were a married free Black couple living in the Quaker stronghold of Dover, who might have been in Lafayette’s public audience. They obviously had a high regard for Lafayette.

Around 1827, the year that slavery was abolished in New York, they named their newborn son Lafayette Williams. Appropriately, Lafayette Williams went on to serve in the Civil War in the 28th US Colored Troops. Tragically, he died in service to his country in June of 1865 and is buried at City Point National Cemetery, Virginia. Again, there is probably nothing indicating 22

more respect than the naming of a child in honor of another.

Also possibly in the audience lauding Lafayette, also from Dover at the time, could have been Thomas and Charlotte Bolin. They would have been either free or self-emancipated Blacks from New Jersey who were in the very center of the Quaker stronghold of Dover. They launched what became four generations of prominent Blacks locally, in order: Abram Bolin, a small business owner and leader of the movement in higher education for Blacks, Gaius Bolin, the first Black graduate of Williams College and first Black attorney in Dutchess County, and Jane Bolin, a graduate of Wellesley and Yale Law School, she became the first Black female judge in the United States in 1929. We don’t know, but we can imagine the head of such an ambitious family might have been among those making up the historic record turnout.

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Indigenous Peoples The general perception of Lafayette among Indigenous Peoples would have been generally positive. In him, they would have seen an advocate in both words and deeds, in both big moves & intimate gestures.

During the war, Lafayette reached out and assisted the Oneida Nation with fortifications of their upstate New York settlement and persuaded them to become America’s ally. They sent 47 of their soldiers to join the Continental Army.

Out of respect for him they called him Kaleywah – meaning great warrior.

According to Oneida oral tradition, an Oneida woman named Polly Cooper was instrumental at Valley Forge during the deadly winter of 1777 to 1778, in helping the poorly clothed, under-fed, and inadequately housed American patriots– by training them in the use of winter-stored food, and tending to their needs.

When Lafayette arrived in Utica in 1825, the heartland of Oneida territory, he expressed his surprise and disappointment in finding that none of his Oneida friends had been invited.

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Lafayette insisted they be invited. Among those who were able to come was Henry Cornelius, who Lafayette knew from the war. They embraced, and met in a private audience, something not frequently granted by Lafayette. The cycle of big moves and intimate gestures continued.

Any indigenous person in the audience in 1824 would have likely known about his storied relationship with the Oneida during the war.

Who might have been in the audience who was Indigenous? Again, we can only speculate, but these are leading candidates.

Hannah Coshire of Fishkill would have been around 24 years old when Lafayette visited. She was the daughter of Jonah and Lydia Coshire, of Schaghticoke. She lived with her brother Steven, and was a well-known, admired woman who was portrayed (as so many were) as the last of her race in her obituary in 1877.

Henry Catskill would have been a young boy. He is described by the historian Frank Hasbrouck in 1905 as an example of the Wappinger who married and settled with local Blacks in the Fishkill hamlet of Baxtertown. Hasbrouck describes him saying and I quote, Harry Catskill, as entirely Native in appearance, “a well-built, handsome man, with straight hair.”

Susan May, whose January 1, 1814 marriage record from DCHS Collections is reported by the historian Isaac Huntting to have been from the Shekomeko settlement in today’s Pine Plains. She married Andrew Frazier, the son of the Andrew Frazier we mentioned earlier.

Prince Minisee was a young man at the time, living in the area of the Shekomeko settlement and Gallatin in Columbia County. He was reported to be an Indigenous Person, again, the last of his race, and Mohican.

He went on to Michigan with his sons in the late 19th century, and there the family became a widely-known and highly regarded frontier farming Black family, recognized by the US Federal Government in the 1970s in a publication shown here.

During Lafayette’s lifetime, and during the 1824 to 1825 tour, we can see that the well established, free and enslaved Blacks, the working class, and women, among other groups, all held Lafayette in esteem, even though each were at very different and varying levels of equality and equal protection under the law.

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After death: Invocation of Lafayette in Irish Catholic Immigrant Debate Lafayette died May 20, 1834. Poughkeepsie set its day of remembrance in for the 3rd of July, starting with a salute of 24 guns at sunrise, repeated every half hour until sunset. Bells of the village rang during a large procession of military and civilian organizations and the general public, who wore black crepe on their left arm.

Two decades after his death, Lafayette’s name was invoked by those arguing that the arrival of millions of impoverished Irish Catholics in the United States posed an existential threat to the United States and any democratic form of government. The threat was described as a foreign leader, the Pope, directing Catholics in the United States how to vote, making him the defacto leader.

This perceived risk was so strong that in 1960, US Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy felt he had to give a speech specifically on the topic, and promising he would never take directions from the Pope.

One of the loudest voices warning of the danger of Catholics was Samuel F. B. Morse. Later known for the invention of the telegraph, during Lafayette’s tour Morse was known as a portrait painter and won the commission from New York City to paint Lafayette’s official portrait.

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Morse invoked this early relationship with Lafayette to give credence to his false claim that Lafayette had warned, “If ever the liberties of the United States are destroyed they will be destroyed

by Romish Priests.” By then living in and writing from Poughkeepsie on May 2, 1855, in an open exchange of accusatory letters between Morse and a Kentucky Catholic Bishop, Morse said, “The question is whether Lafayette ever gave this warning is the point,” which Morse was falsely saying was expressed by Lafayette in a letter to a Protestant gentleman in New York after his 1824, 1825 tour.

In a return salvo printed in the New York Times, Jared Sparks, the president of Harvard College, biographer of Washington and friend of Lafayette took issue with that saying, and I quote,”I often saw Lafayette in Paris In the year 1829. I never heard him speak disrespectfully of the Catholic church or clergy Sparks married a woman from Hyde Park where they were married in St James Episcopal Church, her depiction of the church is the only known depiction of the original Hyde Park Church, from Dutchess County Historical Society Collections.

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20th Century: Women, World War One, & World War Two But it was World War One at the beginning of the 20th century where Lafayette’s profile was dramatically raised again, and that it was raised to arguably the highest level of consequence, the combined, collaborative, effort of the two republics in the name of freedom and democracy.

The devastating war in Europe that would come to be known as World War One started in August of 1914. The American public was reluctant to get drawn into a foreign conflict and would not do so until April of 1917.

During the intense period of fighting before the United States got involved, any American who wanted to fight and defend France could do so through the Foreign Legion. As these local newspaper headlines at the time show, there was no misunderstanding of the scale and gravity of commencement of hostilities.

Among the earliest Americans to step forward was a young man with ties to Red Hook, Victor Chapman. Chapman was living in France at the time with his father, and stepmother, Elizabeth Chanler Chapman, who was of the Astor family and whose Red Hook estate, 28

Rokeby was well known to Chapman. Chapman’s Astor ancestor’s would have been among the elite involved in welcoming Lafayette in 1824.

Chapman joined the French Foreign Legion August 30, 1914 Chapman trained and became a pilot in the earliest days of this kind of warfare, and was killed June 24, 1916 while flying a mission.

It was reported in the press at the time and I quote that “… at the usual 4th of July ceremony at Lafayette’s grave…Chapman’s name was linked with that of Lafayette and the bond of good feeling between the sister republics…”

But the largest invocation of Lafayette’s name was yet to come.

Eighty-three years after his death, in 1917, the name of Lafayette was invoked by the United States after finally, reluctantly sending troops to France. As a way to rally US public support for the war, US General Pershing had a ceremony at the grave of Lafayette in Paris.

When an aid uttered, Lafayette we are here! This helped position the sacrifice Americans were about to make as thanks for French support during the Revolutionary War, it was quickly attributed to Pershing and became a commonplace rallying cry. Today’s Poughkeepsie-based American Legion carries the name of the Lafayette Post since its World War One founding by Poughkeepsie’s C. Fred Close.

There was more. Although critics said the continuation of the women’s suffrage movement was a distraction from the World War One war effort, many women disagreed, saying the need for women’s involvement was the perfect time for an equal seat at the table.

The most persistent women’s suffragists were organizing at the statue of Lafayette at Lafayette Park, across from the White House in Washington, DC. Here they launched what became the first, and perhaps best known pickets of the White House.

On September 16, 1918, a Colorado suffragist named Bertha Arnold, read words written by Evelyn Wainwright that launched with the phrase, Lafayette, we are here! The words included the plea, “Dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the American people. Speak again to plead for us…” And so the name of Lafayette has been invoked for generations and centuries by many worlds.

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By 1920, the name and person of Lafayette was so intensely meaningful, that Lafayette Day was launched on September 6, 1915 and celebrated nationally for a few years. It was Lafayette's birthday, and the anniversary of the launch of the 1914 battle at the Marne. Victor Chapman’s father, John Jay Chapman, spoke at West Point, Lafayette Day 1920 and read a poem he had written. The idea of the holiday was first formally proposed by an extended family member of the Chapmans: the wife of William Astor Chanler, Minnie Ashley Chanler.

Famously, during the German occupation of Paris during World War Two, the American flag continued to be raised at the grave of Lafayette, out of sight to the Nazis.

A lineal descendant of Nicholas Fish who we profiled earlier, Hamilton Fish III served in US Congress representing Dutchess, Putnam and Orange Counties from 1920 to 1945.

In 1958 he established and chaired for many years the Order of Lafayette, a patriotic organization of Americans who served in either World War One or World War Two in France, giving awards for example to General and US President Dwight Eisenhower, and supporting and bolstering French and American relationships in a variety of ways.

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In World War One, Black American soldiers were not only segregated in the US military, they were not welcome under US General Pershing’s command, and so served under French command, with White American officers, such as Fish.

Fish said, “We spent 191 days in the frontline trenches, longer than any other American regiment. We were the first Allied regiment to reach the Rhine. At the end of World War I, I told my men, ‘You have fought and died for freedom and democracy. Now, you should go back home to the United States and continue to fight for your own freedom and democracy.’” Which of course they did, and continue to do.

In addition to this big move, not surprisingly we encounter an intimate gesture that resonates through to today.

Wint Aldrich of Rokeby at Red Hook explains that his great-uncle, Hamilton Fish, who died in 1991 at the age of 103, would offer his hand in greeting – and enjoyed saying to people, especially young people – "Shake the hand that shook the hand that shook the hand of Lafayette." What today we might shorthand as there being three degrees of separation between Hamilton Fish and Lafayette, through a handshake, or four degrees if we speak of Wint Aldrich, Congressman Fish was referring to the fact that during Lafayette’s farewell tour, his greatgrandfather, Colonel Nicolas Fish was feeling the effects of his age…and so Colonel Fish relied on his son (known as the first Hamilton Fish who was sixteen years old at the time) to frequently represent him in the traveling escort during Lafayette’s 1824 visit. Hamilton Fish the Third was a young boy and would have many time shaken the hand of his grandfather. And this is how what we might call three degrees of separation between Hamilton Fish the Third and Lafayette came about, and it is perhaps not surprising that it is the story of an intimate gesture that continues today through the words of Wint Aldrich.

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What & How Shall We Remember in September of 2024?

September 16 and September 19 of 2024 will mark 200 years since Lafayette visited Dutchess and Columbia Counties. As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, perhaps Lafayette can be remembered in ways relevant to today.

We have noted anniversaries of his service and his tour, in the past.

In 1902, the New-York-City based Lafayette Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War veterans group, dedicated a memorial to Lafayette Melzingah Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The 100th anniversary in nineteen twenty-four was celebrated in a relatively quiet way. The 150th anniversary of the local visit included postcards commemorating the event.

What shall we do on the 200th anniversary of his visit? As we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States on July 4, 2026, what is relevant to know about Lafayette today?

Through moves big and small, we can see Lafayette’s very inclusive commitment to equality and liberty for all. He heard, and responded to, a wide range of voices. Perhaps we can bear in mind that Lafayette saw the adherence to truth as fundamental. His ability to make big moves, and small gestures on behalf of, and engaging with, many who felt invisible and left out of America’s progress – was extraordinarily inclusive, and reciprocal: social outcasts of the elite, the working 32

class, free and enslaved Blacks, Indigenous Peoples, women… Lafayette did not shy away from the scale of this ambition, but adhered to it as a truth whether that engendered adulation …or prison. Or both.

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