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Editor’s Note: This year marks the Bicentennial, 2024-2025, of Lafayette and his farewell tour, “Guest of the Nation”, which took place August 15, 1824-September 7, 1825. To commemorate the occasion, the LaGrange Daily News will be publishing a series of columns by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette.

Week of March 31-April 7, 1825

The Farewell Tour

Mark Twain’s remedy for a cold:  “Plain gin was recommended, then gin and molasses, then gin and onions.  I took all three.”  Lafayette had handy opportunity to fall back on strong drink as ready remedy for whatever his ails, what with thirteen toasts, just for starters, at virtually every landing.  When he was a teenager he tarnished the threshold of his sobriety, which he discovered was not very high as he did not hold liquor well.  I find no instance on this Farewell Tour where he challenged his two-carbon-fragment limits.

This week into Alabama and dense woods, rivers from recent rains swollen such that bridges were sometimes submerged and made going hard.  Creek Chief William Chillicothe (Chilly) McIntosh accompanied Lafayette, and squads of Indians stationed themselves along the way as guides and protectors.  At one point, a bridge was submerged, shallow enough to forge, but its edges indistinct; twenty Indians in two parallel rows linked arm-in-arm staked the limits of the shoulders of the bridge as Lafayette’s carriage crossed.  Lafayette tried to pay them for their kindness; they waved it off, wanted only to shake his hand.  “Kayewla” they called him, “Great Warrior.”   Chilly McIntosh “conveyed to Lafayette their good wishes and affection.”

Lafayette spent the night at an Indian village, “Big Warrior,” which Levasseur described as “so beautiful that it still appears to me one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.”  The chief of this local tribe was Captain Kendall Lewis, formerly of the United States Army.  The previous chief was “Big Warrior”; Lewis married his daughter, took up Indian ways, and became chief when “Big Warrior” died.

The next day, toward evening, Lafayette arrived at Line Creek Village; the creek of the same name separated Creek territory from the rest of Alabama.  Lewis’s Indians had followed Lafayette in a long cavalcade; here “they pulled the rein and disappeared with loud cries.”  Chilly McIntosh and his fifty warriors remained.  A separate delegation of Indians appeared at Line Creek to greet Lafayette; Jane Bacon MacIntire says the Old Chief leading them, through an interpreter, “delivered a speech of matchless beauty,” and goes on to quote at length:  “The youngest among us will tell their grandchildren that they have touched your hand and seen your face; they will perhaps see you again, for you are a favorite of the Great Spirit and you never grow old.”

Lafyette’s esteem with Native Americans was extraordinary, especially since his encounters with them were limited.  He met with the Six Nations of the Iroquois in 1778 at Johnstown; fifty Oneidas fought under his command at the Battle of Barren Hill; and he attended the Indian Conference at Fort Schuyler in 1784.  It is a wonder that he was so much revered, but partly, no doubt, because of his reputation, and perhaps more importantly because of his gestures of respect toward them.  He treated them with an air of reciprocity, no hint of arrogance or condescension, and he admired their personal values of courage and determination.

Lafayette spent the night at the tavern of Walter B. Lucas on the Old Federal Road.  This place he did not like:  Indians were sold liquor and once inebriated, relieved of their money and their pelts.

Lafayette left Line Creek on April 3rd.  At Montgomery two large tents atop Goat Hill shaded the official reception committee of Alabama.   Governor Israel Pickens under an evergreen arch attempted to give a welcoming speech; he was so choked up that the address had to be given by Colonel Bolling Hall.  The Governor then escorted Lafayette to his quarters at the home of Colonel John Edmondson on Commerce Street, near Dexter Avenue. 

The ball that night at Freeney’s Tavern witnessed Chilly McIntosh dancing adroitly with a “number of beautiful ladies.”  Afterwards, McIntosh bid farewell to Lafayette.  On his exit, McIntosh met Levasseur.  He placed Levasseur’s right arm atop his own right arm and told Levasseur to take good care of Lafayette.  “I will pray to the Great Spirit to watch over him and return him safely to his children.  I hope he will not forget us,” he said, and was gone.  “The fifty warriors also said goodbye and likewise disappeared silently and swiftly into the woods.”

At 2 PM next day Lafayette boarded the “Henderson,” which Levasseur mistakenly called the “Anderson.”  The city of Mobile dispatched two steamboats, the “Henderson” and the “Balize,” two floating palaces, to transport Lafayette and company.  The “Henderson” had on board a band of musicians sent from New Orleans to entertain for three hundred miles, down the Alabama River to the Tombigbee River, over three days.

Lafayette had lunch at Selma at Woodall’s Hotel with Col. W. R. King, who had named the town.  It was a one hour stop before re-embarking to Cahawba, Alabama’s capital from 1820-1825, where he was escorted by Governor Pickens.  The procession entered Cahawba as a band played “Lafayette’s March”; reception at the State House; dinner at White’s Tavern; and a public barbecue for those unable to attend the dinner; supper at 5 PM with the Masons; and a ball to cap the evening, before reboarding the “Henderson” at 11 PM.

The “Henderson” stopped for a few hours at noon the next day at Claiborne for a procession and lunch.  Finally, passing the mouth of the Tombigbee River, the “Henderson” arrived at Mobile Bay April 7.