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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 June 9, 1825

The Farewell Tour

Lafayette boarded the “Rochester” at Lockport, just outside Buffalo, and travelled the Erie Canal to Rochester, then overland by coach 130 miles to Syracuse, where he arrived at 6 AM.  Even at that hour the streets were filled with crowds who, not knowing the exact time of his arrival beforehand, had waited up all night.  At the Mansion House a splendid meal prepared for the night before made for a delectable breakfast.  Three hours later, after the reception and the parade, back on the Canal to Rome.  He arrived at 10 PM, reception waiting.  He spent the night at nearby Oriskany, at the home of Colonel Gerritt Lansing, one of the village founders.  “Oriskany,” the story has it, was first “Oriska,” but someone at the post office mistook the absence of a comma in “Oriska NY,” to be the name of the village, making it thereafter, “Oriskany.”

At Utica, breakfast at Shepard’s Hotel was followed by a reception, a parade, and a meeting with three chiefs of the Oneida tribe who had come to greet him and who had fought with him in 1778.  When Lafayette visited America in 1784, for the third time, ten states in five months, he took time to return to the Oneida, one of whom, nineteen-year-old Peter Otsiquette, was to live with Lafayette in France for two-and-one-half years.  The Indians called Lafayette “Kayewla,” or Great Warrior.

Lafayette boarded the canal boat “Governor Clinton” at 5 PM.  As the crowds waved farewell, an Indian was seen sprinting the banks signaling the boat to stop; Captain Major Swartout was not inclined to stop.  The Indian sprinted ahead of the boat and onto a bridge overpass, a low-slung affair.  When the “Clinton” passed beneath, the Indian jumped aboard.  “Where is Kayewla?  I want to see Kayewla,” he said.  Lafayette identified, the Indian said, ”I am the son of Wekchekaeta of him who loved you so much that he followed you to your native land when you returned there after the Great War; my father often spoke of you, and I am happy to see you.”  “Wekchekaeta” was Peter Otsiquette.  After a brief conversation, Levasseur writes, “About ten feet separated us from the edge of the canal; he cleared this distance with the nimbleness of a deer and disappeared in an instant.”

The deadline to reach Boston in time for the Bunker Hill Monument dedication was looming.  Lafayette arrived at Schenectady at 8 PM, having stopped for a reception earlier at Little Falls.  He departed Schenectady at 11 PM by carriage, having travelled 300 miles on the Erie Canal from Lockport.  He arrived at Albany at the Cruttenden Hotel early June 12th and wrote to Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy that he would make it to Boston on time.

Through Pittsfield and after a reception at the Coffee-House of Joseph Merrick there, Lafayette arrived at Worthington, Massachusetts, at 9 PM and spent the night at the Tavern of Noah Pierce.

On through Chesterfield and Northampton, he arrived at Worcester at 2 AM, June 15th, and slept at the Exchange Hotel, where Washington had had breakfast in 1789.  He arrived in Boston near noon, the terminus of 5000 miles over four months.

Lafayette was hosted his first night in Boston at the mansion of James Lloyd, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, near Ashburton Place, No. 27 Somerset Street at the top of Beacon Hill.  Earlier in the day he had paid a call on Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy, and he walked down to the corner of Summer and High Streets to call on Daniel Webster, member of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

The next day, June 16th, he met with Massachusetts Governor Levi Lincoln Jr., and Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy, and spoke to a joint session of the legislature.  He returned to the Lloyd house for the evening to prepare for the Bunker Hill ceremonies the next day.