By Christopher Hodapp, President
Masonic Library & Museum of Indiana
“Of all the high gratifications I have experienced, in my progress through my adopted country, my receptions by the Grand Lodges of the United States have afforded me the greatest, because I beheld in them a new and beautiful exhibition of that Union on which the prosperity of this great Republic is based, and a sure pledge of its continuance.” – Marquis de La Fayette speaking to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1825.
This year begins the 200th anniversary of Major General Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette’s triumphant goodwill tour of America between 1824-25. Lafayette’s exploits in America during the American Revolution endeared him to the new nation, and he had long been regarded as one of the greatest heroes of the war. The young French nobleman was thoroughly dedicated to the cause of liberty, even before he arrived in America, and long after he returned home to France, where he was soon swept up in their own revolution. Over the course of his long and tumultuous life, Lafayette would know and dine with the first seven presidents of the United States: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and the future president Andrew Jackson. But in addition to his life as a military figure, statesman, diplomat, revolutionary, abolitionist, political prisoner, and so much more, he was also a Freemason.
“Hero of Two Worlds”
After the deaths of his father, mother and grandfather, young Gilbert du Moitier inherited the aristocratic title of Marquis de La Fayette, along with a massive estate and a vast family fortune, making him one of the richest men in France. His father had been a military commander, killed in the American colonies by British forces during what we call the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years War). Young Gilbert was intent on avenging his death. At just 14, he joined the Black Musketeers, King Louis XV’s horse guard, as a 2nd lieutenant. Two years later he married 14-year-old Adrienne de Noailles, whose own family was extraordinarily wealthy. And yet, with all of his wealth and honors, Lafayette (as his name was Americanized) became one of democracy’s greatest defenders, in both America and in France, eventually becoming ‘The Hero of Two Worlds.’
Lafayette in Revolutionary America
Lafayette’s role in the American Revolution is the stuff of legend. At the age of 19, when he learned of the Americans rebelling against Britain, he defied both his own family and a royal decree of King Louis’ that prohibited French officers and soldiers from fighting in America. Lafayette purchased his own ship, christened it Victoire, packed it full of military equipment and supplies, and sailed for Philadelphia, teaching himself English in the course of the voyage. The young man was no mercenary for hire—he volunteered his services to the Congress for no pay and was made a Major General in the Continental Army. George Washington almost immediately befriended the young, zealous Frenchman, who came to regard him as a father figure. Washington took him on as a member of his staff. Such was the Frenchman’s admiration for his commander that he named his son Georges Washington de La Fayette, in honor of his closest friend.
While recovering from a leg wound he received at the Battle of Brandywine, Lafayette had briefly sailed back to France in 1778 and joined envoys Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in wooing King Louis to support the American cause, diplomatically, militarily, and financially. When he returned, he brought 6 ships and 6,000 French troops with him. Lafayette was tasked with planning and attempting an invasion into Canada, which was aborted after Congress failed to send promised troops. When Benedict Arnold turned traitor against the Americans, it was Lafayette and his men who hunted him down. And Lafayette commanded troops from the Virginia Continental forces at Yorktown in the final battle against Britain’s General Cornwallis that won the war for the Americans.
When the peace treaty was signed ending the American Revolution, leading to the establishment of the new United States, Lafayette famously declared, “America is sure of her independence. Humanity has won its case, and freedom will never again be without an asylum.”
The French Revolution
Lafayette’s life in France over the next decades rivaled his activities in America. Returning to France, he joined the National Assembly, where he was instrumental in the adoption of the French ‘tri-color’ red, white and blue flag. He fought for the formation of a constitutional French monarchy, and in 1789, he drafted a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, written with the help of his friend Thomas Jefferson. It is one of the great Enlightenment documents of freedom.
Lafayette’s popularity in his own country waxed and waned with the waves of political unrest. Like so many who went to the guillotine for being “moderates,” he attempted to straddle the line between the radical philosophy that fueled the revolution and his own more centrist politics, while doing what he could to prevent the madness and murder that would place his own life in danger. It was a dangerous, flash-fire political climate; Lafayette would be hated one year as the head of the National Guard for putting down a riot in which 50 protesters were killed, yet he would be offered as a candidate for mayor the next. He led the legendary assault on the Bastille, and famously sent his friend George Washington the massive iron key taken from its gate. But when the bloodthirsty horrors and violence of the Terror erupted and went unchecked, he publicly denounced the radical Jacobins and their demands to behead King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette. He was stripped of his property, condemned by the Jacobins in power, and forced to flee the country into the Austrian Netherlands (what is now Belgium). While he attempted to arrange for moving his family by ship to America, he was arrested, and would spend the next 7 years in an Austrian prison.
In 1800, after Napoleon Bonaparte came to power as First Consul, the new leader of France restored Lafayette’s French citizenship and permitted him to recover some of his property that had been confiscated during the Terror. But, while grateful, he refused to proclaim loyalty to Napoleon.
Back in the U.S., President Thomas Jefferson, in1803, made the mother of all real estate deals, convincing Napoleon to sell off 500 million acres west of the Mississippi River in North America for the bargain basement price of just 3¢ an acre. The Louisiana Purchase, quite literally with the stroke of a couple of quill pens, doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson extended an invitation to his friend to move to America and become the first governor of the massive territory, but Lafayette wished to confine his participation in government to relatively minor roles in France.
While Lafayette admired Napoleon’s accomplishments in bringing calm and order to French society and governance, he vehemently opposed Bonaparte being proclaimed emperor. However, after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo and confinement on Saint Helena, Lafayette also opposed the restoration of the Bourbon kings to the throne of France. He remained completely dedicated to establishing a liberal, American-style constitutional republic, though it was a cause he would never live to see fulfilled. But through every revolution, every bloody political upheaval, Lafayette was a man with an unwavering ethical and political compass. He refused to compromise his beliefs, not for money, fame, or even his personal safety.
America’s National Guest
In 1824, the American Revolution’s 50th anniversary was fast approaching, and Lafayette was the last of George Washington’s commanding generals who was still alive. President James Monroe and the U.S. Congress formally extended an invitation for Lafayette to return to America as “the Nation’s Guest,” and the 67-year-old hero arrived in New York on Sunday, August 15, 1824. With him were his son George Washington Lafayette and his valet Bastien. His personal secretary, André-Nicolas Levasseur, accompanied the party and was charged with documenting the details of the entire trip.
It would be difficult to overstate the impact of this American tour. Upon their arrival in New York, General Lafayette was greeted as a beloved hero by more than 50,000 adoring people, eager to catch a glimpse of the last surviving major general and military hero of the Revolution.
Over the 50 years since its founding, the young nation had grown from 13 to 24 states, along with the enormous Louisiana Purchase territories west of the Mississippi River. In the course of the 13-month tour, Lafayette would set foot in all 24 states — 6,000 miles in all. During his whirlwind goodwill trek across the country he spoke in many places, including more than a few Masonic lodges. He was treated with much the same sort of awe and adoration that had been reserved for George Washington himself, which never ceased to astonish him.
You’ll find letters, transcripts of speeches, tributes, toasts, diplomas, songs written for the occasion, descriptions of medals and other gifts given to Lafayette. He opened new public buildings, attended cornerstone ceremonies, dedicated bridges, and attended public ceremonies of every description. Souvenirs featuring his likeness commemorating the visit were created all over the country, and at least 36 American cities and towns were ultimately named after Lafayette. Everywhere the general went crowds followed him through the streets. Balls, dinners, tours, concerts, parades, and public honors of every kind were arranged to pay tribute to him, and what started out to be a three-month trip lasted over a year, with a schedule that would have been grueling for men half his age.
Lafayette and the Freemasons
Masonic lodges and most of America’s grand lodges at that time had numerous contacts with the legendary general and Freemason throughout the trip. A new book just published in September by Chris Ruli, Brother Lafayette (2024, Macoy), is a comprehensive listing and explanation of every documented Masonic-related contact Lafayette had during his national tour. Over the 13 months, he met with or was feted by Masons in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont. Doubtless there were countless other unofficial, casual contacts he had with individual Masons that were never well documented.
Lafayette was granted honorary memberships in lodges and grand lodges and received gifts of all kinds everywhere he went. In New York City on Saturday, September 11, 1824, Lafayette received the Royal Arch degrees and the orders of Knights Templar—a famous contemporary painting by artist Albion Hurdle of Virginia’s famed Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 depicts him wearing a traditional black triangular Templar apron with its skull and crossed bones. Nine days later, the Grand Lodge of New York held a massive dinner for Lafayette with more than 600 Masons in attendance. And on September 22nd, he received degrees of the Scottish Rite in a New York Cerneau chapter.
Indiana Along the Way
Lafayette’s travels did bring him briefly to Indiana, but his introduction to the Hoosier state was an unscheduled one. On May 8, 1824, the general and his party were traveling up the Ohio River aboard the steamship Mechanic from Nashville, Tennessee to Louisville, Kentucky, at the Falls of the Ohio. The ship had passed Tell City, Indiana just around midnight when it struck a submerged object in the river (about five miles beyond present-day Cannelton) and began to rapidly take on water. Lafayette and an 8-year-old child who was on board with her family were hurriedly rowed to safety on the riverbank, while George, Bastien and Levasseur remained on board, attempting to save what they could of their party’s possessions with little success. All of the Mechanic’s passengers survived, but the general lost almost everything. Money, clothing, letters and documents, diaries, the many gifts he had received from all over the country, even a custom carriage made especially to transport the general and his group when traveling by land, all were carried away by the strong, fast-moving current of the river.
The next day, the Mechanic passengers flagged down a passing steamboat, the Paragon, and were safely transported to Louisville. Two days later, on May 11th, Lafayette was rowed across the river to spend part of the day in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The layout of the town, named after his close friend Thomas Jefferson, had been based on a grid pattern designed by the former president, and the general was eager to see how workable it still was after 20 succeeding years of growth.
The Grand Lodge of Indiana made no official attempt to meet with the general. Indiana had been granted statehood just 8 years before Lafayette’s arrival, and the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana had only been in existence for 6 and a half years. In 1825, the state was still sparsely populated, with the overwhelming majority of people clustered along the Ohio and Wabash rivers on the southern edge of the state. Jeffersonville’s Posey Lodge No. 9 had only been chartered in 1819, and their officers and members made no known public effort to meet with Brother Lafayette, either. However, several of Indiana’s earliest political leaders were Masons, including then-Governor James Brown Ray, as well as several members of the General Assembly. They met the general and hosted a dinner for him at the former residence of the late Territorial Governor Thomas Posey, a Brother Mason for whom the local lodge had been named.
Dwight Smith in his book Goodly Heritage does relate a couple of anecdotes involving Lafayette and Hoosier Masons. At Louisville, Lafayette boarded the steamboat General Pike (no, NOT the Albert Pike of Scottish Rite fame, who would have been just 14 years old in 1824) and the party headed upriver for Cincinnati. About 20 miles upstream from Louisville at Charlestown Landing (where Charlestown State Park is today), the General Pike made a brief stop. Benjamin Ferguson, State Senator and Past Master of Blazing Star Lodge No. 3, led a group of nearby neighbors and several fellow lodge members down to catch a glimpse of the general, and he was invited on board to quickly shake hands and exchange pleasantries with his famous Masonic Brother.
At Milton, Kentucky, the boat stopped to take on water and wood for its boilers. Milton is directly across the river from Madison, Indiana, and a group of “prominent citizens” and a handful of Masons from Union Lodge No. 2 rowed across and were graciously received by the general while standing out in the wood yard. With the group was local artist, Brother Richardson Terrell, who made a preliminary sketch of Lafayette that day. Nine years later, he presented a life-size portrait of the general to Union Lodge, and it hung in the lodge’s stairwell for many years. It has since been donated by the lodge to the local history museum in Madison.
In 1825, Lafayette Lodge No. 28 was chartered by 8 Masons at a place in Shelby County called Hanover, near Shelbyville (this is not the present town of Hanover in Jefferson County, just south of Madison). Lafayette Lodge No. 28 was consecrated on June 17, 1825, the same day that General Lafayette was back east helping Massachusetts Masons lay the cornerstone of a new battlefield monument at Bunker Hill. Lafayette Lodge held its first meetings in the upstairs sleeping room of a log tavern on Brookville Road, just west of Morristown. In 1828, they moved into the garret loft of a family’s cabin near the village of Freeport.
Meanwhile, the town of Lafayette, Indiana on the east bank of the Wabash River in Tippecanoe County was officially established in 1825. In those days, mailing addresses could be remarkably informal. It was common for a letter marked simply ‘Masonic Lodge Town Name Here’ to arrive without further specifics. Because Lafayette Lodge wasn’t actually in or around the growing town of Lafayette, Indiana, a problem arose within the post office over which Masonic lodge called ‘Lafayette’ would have their mail properly delivered. Lafayette Lodge 28 forfeited its charter in 1835 during the height of the national Anti-Masonic movement. It was subsequently reconsecrated as Shelby Lodge 28 in 1845; LaFayette Lodge 123 was chartered in 1852 and really was located in the town of Lafayette we know and love today.
Farewell
A year after his arrival, the Nation’s Guest made his way back to Virginia in mid-August of 1825, where he took one last opportunity to visit the grave of George Washington at Mount Vernon. He also dropped in on his old friends, former presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. In Washington, D.C. he was invited to stay at the White House by President John Quincy Adams, and on September 6th, a state dinner was held in his honor, which coincided with his 68th birthday. A day later, the general’s party boarded the Brandywine, provided for his use by the U.S. Navy, and sailed for home.
While he had been assisting in the cornerstone ceremony for the Battle of Bunker Hill monument that June, Lafayette had taken a small amount of American soil from the base of the monument back to France with him. General Lafayette died 9 years later, and was buried next to his beloved wife Adrienne in the tiny Picpus Cemetery in Paris. According to his last wish, when his body was laid to rest, that little bit of soil from America was sprinkled over his grave. Ever since his death, the American flag has flown over General Lafayette’s grave, undisturbed even during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II.
The Masonic Membership of Brother Lafayette
Unfortunately, there are no surviving records to confirm where and when Brother Lafayette was made a Mason. Masonic historians in France believe he joined either Paris’ Loge La Candeur in 1775; a military lodge called Saint Jean de St. Louis de la Vraie Virtu while stationed in Metz in 1771; or possibly Saint Jean d’Ecosse du Contrat Social Loge in Paris just before leaving for America. But some American Masons have suggested he was raised in an American traveling military lodge after he joined the Continental Army. Over the last two centuries, claims have been made that he joined an unnamed military lodge while camped at Valley Forge, possibly presided over by General George Washington himself. Other claims have been made for American Union Lodge in New Jersey (a lodge with a fascinating and unique history of its own, eventually becoming a stationary lodge in Marietta, Ohio); Military Lodge No. 19 in Morristown, New Jersey; St. John’s Regimental Lodge of New Jersey; and Washington Military Lodge No. 10 in New York.
GRAND LODGE TO CELEBRATE BROTHER LAFAYETTE’S TIME IN INDIANA
For several years, the American Friends of Lafayette [https://lafayette200.org] have been preparing for the bicentennial of Marquis de Lafayette’s American tour, erecting historical markers, arranging for events all along the 6,000-mile route of his original trip. Each stop along the way will take place on the same date as it did 200 years ago. Festivities began on August 16, 2024 in New York City, and the trip will wind up at Mount Vernon in September next year.
The Grand Lodge of Indiana and the Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research U.D. are planning on participating in a public parade and celebration of Lafayette’s brief visit to Jeffersonville, Indiana next year, on Monday, May 12, 2025. According to the Indiana committee of American Friends of Lafayette, the day will begin with a public parade from Louisville, Kentucky, across the Big Four Railroad Bridge over the Ohio River, and into Jeffersonville’s Big Four Park.