Ohio History Journal

OHIO STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL

SOCIETY

 

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

 

BY THE EDITOR

 

ANNIVERSARY OF VISIT OF LAFAYETTE TO OHIO

CELEBRATED IN CINCINNATI.

One great city in the United States, at least, appro-

priately celebrated the centenary of Lafayette's visit to

America. The city of Cincinnati, under the leadership

of Mrs. Lowell F. Hobart, Ohio Regent of the D. A. R.,

Mrs. Charles A. Meyers, Regent of the Cincinnati chap-

ter of this organization, Mrs. Thomas Kite, general

chairman of the committee in charge and Mrs. J.

Stanley Orr, her assistant, planned a very successful

celebration of the visit of Lafayette to Cincinnati

where he was received one hundred years before in the

name of the state as well as the Queen City of the West.

On May 19, 1925, just one hundred years after the

visit of Lafayette, a most interesting program was ren-

dered. The newspapers of Cincinnati had prepared the

people for the event by the publication of accounts of

Lafayette's visit and the people came out in great num-

bers to hear read the speech of Governor Morrow who

had welcomed Lafayette in behalf of the state and the

reply of Lafayette.

The interest manifested in this celebration simply

illustrates what might have been duplicated in every

city of the United States that had one hundred years

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Reviews, Notes and Comments             427

ago entertained Lafayette. In the failure to adopt and

carry out generally a program for such celebration of

the anniversary of this remarkable tour the patriotic

societies of America lost a real opportunity.

The following editorial of the Cincinnati Times-Star,

of May 18, reflects the spirit that this celebration re-

vived in the Queen City of the West.

 

WHEN LAFAYETTE CAME TO CINCINNATI

The most romantic figure in American history was not an

American, but a Frenchman, and on Tuesday Cincinnati will

honor his memory with appropriate noonday and evening ex-

ercises. Scion of an ancient and noble family, the Marquis de

Lafavette came to his estates at thirteen, was married at six-

teen, and at twenty flung himself into the cause of American in-

dependence, well in advance of the French court. Instantly

attracted by the spirit and promise of this ardent youth and im-

pressed by his soldierly conduct at Brandywine, Washington

gave him command of a division before he had reached man's

estate. He was intrusted with the defense of Virginia and took

part in the siege of Yorktown that decided the war. Then the

young Frenchman returned to his native land, and sought to

make American ideals of liberty a fact in the early days of its

great revolution; almost he succeeded. It was he that intro-

duced the Declaration of Rights, based on our own Declaration

of Independence. He was put in command of the National

Guard. and then of the army of the Ardennes, which he led in a

succession of victories. But the revolution had entered on bloody

courses and, sick at heart, he quitted his native land. There

was still another chapter. after the Bonaparte era was ended.

Lafayette re-entered public life, was a leader in the revolution

of 1830, and forty years after his first command of the Na-

tional Guard. he commanded it again.

His visit to this country in 1825 was memorable in its demon-

stration of America's gratitude and overflowing good will. On

Tuesday, May 1₉th, he came to Cincinnati on his way north from

Lexington, where he had been the guest of Henry Clay. Cross-

ing the Ohio in an elaborately decorated barge rowed by six

prominent citizens, and escorted through our streets in an open

phaeton drawn by six magnificent horses, he was made the cen-

tral figure of ceremonies which included speeches of welcome by

Governor Morrow and General William Henry Harrison, a re-

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