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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 April 28, 1825

The Farewell Tour

Some people miss the point entirely.

Governor Frederick Bates of Missouri, the “Show Me State,” was a no-show.  Every governor enthusiastically welcomed Lafayette to his state, but not Governor Bates, who said he had alerted the state legislature to Lafayette’s impending visit; the state had extended an invitation early on which Lafayette accepted, but Bates said the legislature failed to act and arrangements, therefore, had been hasty and haphazard.  Besides, said Bates, the “ostentation and waste” was pretentious and overblown, and he would not attend any festivities for Lafayette; if he wanted to Lafayette could look Bates up at the capitol or at his home, but most likely, Bates said, Lafayette would find him at neither place since he, Bates, was committed to visiting friends out of town.  It was a stunning display of pique and poor judgement: Lafayette’s Farewell Tour was not at heart about Lafayette.

William Clark, fourth Governor of the Missouri Territory, now Superintendent of Indian Affairs, graciously filled in.  This was the “Clark” of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Corps of Discovery, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis, who died in 1809 of a gunshot wound presumably self-inflicted although there were suspicions of foul play, and then Second Lieutenant William Clark.  “Undaunted Courage,” by Stephen Ambrose is the best narrative of the expedition.

Lafyette spent the night of April 28 aboard the “Natchez,” anchored on the banks of the Mississippi at Carondolet.  The following morning Governor Clark, Governor Coles of Illinois, and Col. Benton boarded and accompanied Lafayette up-river to St. Louis.  The steamboat “Plough Boy” pulled up alongside the “Natchez” piled with onlookers who gave a triple, “Welcome Lafayette!”

The “Natchez” landed at 9 AM at the foot of Market Street where a coach and four horses carried Lafayette to Market House Square where he was greeted by Mayor William Carr Lane and Col. Auguste Choteau, one of the founders of St. Louis, the first to build a house there.  Customary speeches were followed by a parade, a reception at Massie’s Hotel on the corner of Market and Third, and dinner at the very fine home of Pierre Choteau, Auguste Choteau’s son.  Lafayette met William Hamilton, son of his friend Alexander Hamilton. He visited the nearby Indian Mounds; marveled at the grizzly bear claws shown him by Clark; and late in the evening visited Missouri Lodge #1, the oldest in the state.

Afterwards, organizers billed the city $300 for wine; $400 for carriage, butcher, waiters, cooks; and $150 for the use of Pierre Choteau’s home.  I do not know if these were paid.

Later, after the Farewell Tour, Governor Clark sent Lafayette a young grizzly bear.  Lafayette planned to keep it as a pet, but as it matured it became unruly, prompting him to donate it to Jardin de Plantes du Roi, a garden and zoo in Paris.  Lafayette wrote Clark February 1, 1830, to say the grizzly had a “ferocious temper,” and grew to 1400 pounds.

Lafayette departed St. Louis next morning at 8 AM, down the Mississippi.  Governor Coles pleaded with him to make at least one stop in his state of Illinois.  Accordingly, at 1 PM the “Natchez” reached Kaskaskia.  On the fly, they held a reception at the home of General John Edgar, the wealthiest man in Illinois, followed by a banquet and a ball, returning to the “Natchez” at midnight.

For two days Lafayette boated down the Mississippi, into the Ohio River before entering the Cumberland River at 8 PM on May 2nd.  The draft of the “Natchez” was too great for it to float the Cumberland; Lafayette and party transferred to the “Mechanic” for the trip to Nashville.  The “Mechanic” ascended the Cumberland and on May 3 anchored three miles below Nashville for the night before entering the city the next day.

General Andrew Jackson greeted him, followed by a parade, a public banquet, and a reception by the Masons before spending the night at the brick home of Dr. Boyd McNairy.  On May 5th Lafayette had lunch at The Hermitage, Jackson’s home just outside Nashville.  Jackson showed Lafayette a remarkable keepsake.