Lafayette’s historic visit to Elizabeth commemorated

An exhibit at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church is part of a planned 13-month celebration.

Historic Elizabeth is partnering with the National Park Service to bring a free exhibit for residents and history buffs alike.

A bicentennial exhibit of “Lafayette’s Historic Visit to Elizabeth” will be on display from 2 to 6 p.m. each day through Oct. 7 at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church.

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La fayette — Marquis de La fayette or mostly known as Lafayette — was a French nobleman and military officer who volunteered to join the Continental Army led by Gen. George Washington in the American Revolutionary War.

Washington didn’t want to deal with Lafayette at first, but was convinced that he was sincere. Washington eventually made Lafayette a general, and he shed blood for the United States in the Battle of Brandywine.

Locally, Lafayette is known for his visit to Elizabeth on May 29, 1825. To start the commemoration for the bicentennial, the National Park Service traveled from Friendship Hill in Point Marion, Pa., early Friday morning and brought posters and panels to the 314 N. Third Street church.

The National Park Service at Friendship Hill also wanted to be involved and wanted to mark the fact that Lafayette was at Friendship Hill. Uniontown, Friendship Hill, Fells Church, Elizabeth and Braddock museums hope to do commemorative reenactments next year.

An opening event was held Friday afternoon. It took place at the church because Historic Elizabeth’s main location is being renovated. Those interested can park in the back of the church and walk straight in.

Dr. Joe DeChicchis, president of Historic Elizabeth and a former professor in Japan for 25 years, said Ernie Sutton of the Sons of the Revolution is the organizer for the commemorative things that happen in Pennsylvania for Lafayette until next summer.

“So the Sons of the Revolution, it’s really their idea,” DeChicchis said. “They wanted to do this and when they talked about the Battle of Braddock at their museum, they said you should talk to Joe in Elizabeth, so they called me. I said ‘Yeah and we don’t really have a Lafayette scholar here. I’m the best you can get.’ Really it was kind of a snowball thing.”

Aug. 16 was the kickoff of the bicentennial celebration, with hundreds of events planned across the United States that will trace Lafayette’s footstep on the exact dates and in the exact order he followed on his tour of America as the “Guest of the Nation” between 1824 and 1825.

“When the French consulate in Boston started laying those markers out, it piqued the interest of local organizations and they started to say we should do something for the bicentennial and that’s all kind of falling into place and it’s really begun this year in August,” DeChicchis said. “Now they are kind of going across the country kind of like Lafayette did, following his journey with commemorative events. Next year, it will be the bicentennial of the actual arrival of Lafayette in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and you can look up his route.”

Sutton said the history of Lafayette means so much more than a 19 year-old fighting in a war. It’s about what he did in his whole life, which the display covers.

“The anniversary of Lafayette’s 200th visit is really so significant,” Sutton said. “It was 50 years after the Revolution, and it tells a story far more than his role as a general. It covers his role as an abolitionist, a supporter of women’s rights and education and more.

“A lot of these posters, especially if you get to the end, emphasize five other aspects of his life. And they are so germane today, just as they were back then. And that’s why there is going to be so much coverage nationally.”

The website to see the route is https://lafayette200.org, and Lafayette is commemorated all around what is known today as Elizabeth Borough. Historic Elizabeth is hoping to put something up in Elizabeth Forward schools.

DeChicchis said the mission of his 501(c)(3) organization Historic Elizabeth is education that focuses on the area between the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers — the southern end of Allegheny County that was the original gateway to the west.

The National Committee of the Bicentennial of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour 2024-25 will be celebrated in 24 states over 13 months through Sept. 7, 2025. The Western Pennsylvania Tour will travel 366 miles over 10 days from May 24 through June 3, 2025 with events at each major stop.

Major corporate sponsors of the tour are the National America 250 Committee, Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution and American Friends of Lafayette, among others.

With American 250 approaching, the goal of the tour is to make Lafayette’s story more accessible and relevant to today’s citizens. There will be different Lafayette events for historians to look out for next year.

DeChicchis hopes the exhibit will encourage people to think more about the past. Sutton said he can’t remember a time when he didn’t know about Lafayette, after being taught by his dad and grandfather, and hopes people do the same.

“I’m very much impressed with what (the display) tells us about his tour. So for people who don’t know anything about Lafayette’s visit 200 years ago, it’s a really cool place to stop, spend an hour reading the thing,” DeChicchis said. “If they’re with their kids and they want to explain what was going on and who this guy was, it’s really cool especially if they know who Lafayette was. So he was a kind of good hero and if that’s all they know about him, this is great because they can learn a lot more about him.”

History of Lafayette’s Tour of the U.S. and Southwestern Pennsylvania

After it was discovered that Lafayette made a farewell tour of the United States, the French consulate realized most Americans didn’t know about the tour, according to DeChicchis, who said Lafayette’s son, George Washington De Lafayette, as well as his secretary and some servants joined him on the trip.

Capt. Gabriel Peterson, who lived in Elizabeth and was Lafayette’s friend in the Battle of Brandywine, also joined him during part of the journey.

Lafayette managed to visit all 24 states in the U.S. at the time, De-Chicchis said, and it was the biggest event of the year. He would wear a beaver coat with short hair and would pass out pictures of himself.

“Lafayette was the last of George Washington’s generals to be alive. He was the last of the founding fathers to still be alive and when he came,” DeChicchis said. “He was officially invited as a guest of the nation, like he had a letter to be our guest. He only planned to kind of visit Mt. Vernon, maybe six weeks. He ended up staying months like a long time like almost a whole year he’s in the United States.”

Lafayette arrived in New York Harbor on Aug. 15, 1824, and since it was a Sunday, he postponed his entry into the city until the following day.

There were bands and big feasts for the public to come meet Lafayette. He went to Philadelphia, Boston and more.

After going south for the winter, Lafayette came up the Mississippi River by steamboat, according to DeChicchis, but his boat sank in the Ohio River. He took another steamboat to Wheeling, W.Va., and then to Uniontown.

“His old buddy Albert Gallatin welcomed him and one he’s of the founding fathers, was one of the longest-serving secretaries of the treasury who was also the guy that financed the Lewis and Clark Exhibition. Gallatin’s personal home is in Friendship Hill and it’s now a national park,” DeChicchis said. “He’s welcomed in Uniontown, he spends the night and they go to Friendship Hill instead and then all the people follow.”

Early the next morning, May 29, 1825, he left Uniontown in an open carriage and came up Pittsburgh Road. Not far from Fells Church in modern-day Belle Vernon, the carriage overturned and Lafayette spoke to a crowd at the church.

“At that time, Fells Church was a log structure,” DeChicchis said. “They hadn’t built the new building yet, but where the monument is now is approximately where Lafayette would have talked to them.”

From Fells Church, Lafayette traveled to Elizabeth, where he stopped again and addressed the people there as well. In the late afternoon, he got into a boat with four oarsman to row him downstream.

“The reason he came to Elizabeth was the ship industry here,” Sutton said. “He went straight up to Elizabeth because this is where the center of navigation was. This is where they made the boats and this is where it was at in 1825.”

Around 9 p.m., Lafayette got off the boat in North Braddock. George Washington was his hero, and he wanted to see the famous field where Braddock’s Defeat occurred in 1755. He stayed in Braddock that night and left the next day, and many people greeted him as they went into Pittsburgh in a big parade. Lafayette returned to Boston at one point to dedicate a memorial to the Battle of Bunker Hill, according to DeChicchis.

“The guy was busy. I like it, not so much because I’m a Lafayette fan, but he was a good guy too. I like it because if you follow his itinerary, you realize how quickly you could travel from one place to another in 1824,” DeChicchis said. “This is not the age of the railroad yet. Everything is four to five miles per hour. Everywhere. This is the way they traveled, and he leaves Uniontown early in the morning and he arrives (in Elizabeth) early in the afternoon. He goes by boat to Braddock and arrives hours later and he’s going downstream.”

After 13 months in 24 states, Lafayette ended up traveling a total of 6,000 miles and was the first foreign dignitary to address a joint session of Congress.

In 2002, Lafayette was proclaimed an honorary citizen of the United States, making him one of only eight people to receive that designation. Streets, cities and parks across the country have been named after him.

While there are plenty of books that are written about Lafayette’s journey, DeChicchis said his tour and his visit to Elizabeth has set the stage for everything that happened after.

“There’s also some stuff that’s written about his stay in Uniontown,” DeChicchis said. “There’s almost nothing about Fells Church or Elizabeth and Braddock, but he did stop there. From the historian’s perspective, we think it’s really significant that the trip from the steamboat wreck on the Ohio all the way to Pittsburgh. That trip itself is interesting, and Elizabeth is right smack in the middle of it. It’s the only place he gets into a boat and gets rowed somewhere.”