Lafayette’s Grand Tour
Rt. Wor. Bro. Neulander is a Past Master of Transportation Lodge # 337, Past District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, and the first member of the Tennessee Lodge of Research to earn the title of Tennessee Masonic Scholar.
In 2018, soon after I retired to Tennessee I met Worshipful Brother Walter Seifert, who is the Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. Upon Brother Seifert’s learning that I was a retired Adjunct Professor of history at Old Dominion University he enthusiastically invited me to become a “consulting member” of the Grand Lodge “Library and Museum Committee.” Brother Seifert gave me a book entitled, The History of Freemasonry in Tennessee, by Charles A. Snodgrass, (1876-1963), and Bobby J. Demott, (1924-2015), so that I could learn more about my new Grand Lodge home. As I started to read the book I came across a fascinating account that grabbed my attention describing the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to the Grand Lodge of Tennessee in 1825. As a historian, I was vaguely familiar with the history of Lafayette’s visit to America, and I also knew that he was a Freemason. Therefore, I decided to further investigate this “vignette” of history and was greatly rewarded for my endeavors; both as a patriotic citizen and a proud member of Freemasonry.
I have been a Freemason for over 38 years; in addition, I have been a member of and attended several Grand Lodge proceedings in my Masonic career. However, I have never witnessed the awe-inspiring pomp and circumstance of the Masonic reception that Brother Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, (1757-1834), was lavished with during his return visit to America. In this article I will give the reader a short account of the history of Lafayette’s visit to America in general and a description of some of his Masonic activities in particular.
Major General Lafayette, the last living general from the American Revolution, was invited in 1824 by his Masonic Brother and President James Monroe to travel to the United States for the nation’s 50th anniversary. The 67-year-old Lafayette accepted the invitation and brought his son Georges Washington Lafayette with him on what would be described in newspapers throughout America as “Lafayette’s Grand Tour.” Lafayette’s visit took place from August 1824 to September 1825. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, his visit wound up coinciding with a great “sea change” in America’s political future. The presidential election of 1824 created a tumultuous period in American history, because it did not produce an Electoral College winner. I will write more on this historic event later. Originally, Lafayette was to visit the original thirteen states; however, his “Grand Tour” created such “a swirl of excitement” and patriotism to “swell up in the breasts of the citizenry” that he was compelled to visit all twenty-four states of the Union. For those people who did not have the opportunity to see Lafayette and enjoy their “brush with history” personally; they were entertained with “glowing” accounts in all the nation’s newspapers describing in detail “Lafayette’s Triumphant Return” to his adopted country. As a historian, I do not recall any writings by the great Roman historians of antiquity describing a triumphant Roman general’s victory celebration that could rival the many magnificent newspaper articles written about Lafayette’s tour. For Americans, Lafayette’s appearance in so many of their cities and towns was their last chance to be in the presence of, and in some cases actually “touch, the “glorious past” of our nation’s birth.
No doubt, Lafayette appreciated that his tour would bring him one last chance to meet many great friends of his youth. He had left France at the age of 19 to travel halfway around the world in order to help “fan the flames” of democracy. Democracy was an enlightened idea practiced by so few nations at the time. However, democracy was a well-studied historical “anomaly” among the “enlightened philosophes” who “sung its praises” in the salons of France. Lafayette was inspired by the “fledgling” Americans who were fighting to put democratic theory into practice. Therefore, he was instilled with a “burning desire” to be a part of the “great democratic experiment” taking place in his lifetime. Thus, there is no doubt that Lafayette realized that the tour would afford him the last opportunity in his lifetime to relive the great bonds of friendship he shared 40 years earlier with his comrades-in-arms. One such example of this great emotional reunion took place when Lafayette met with the veterans that he bled with and almost died with in the battle of Brandywine in 1777. In addition, it was the last opportunity for Lafayette to rekindle his friendship with the surviving American Founding Fathers of the new democracy he fought so hard to bring to fruition.
“Lafayette’s Grand Tour” produced an incredible “brush with history” for him as well; since, he met with nine past, present, and future presidents. Besides meeting with President and Brother James Monroe, who just so happened to be the last president in American history who was a veteran of the War for Independence; he also met with former presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Lafayette also met with several future American presidents. One very interesting fact about “The Grand Tour,” that was not foreseen at the time of his invitation, was that Lafayette would be traveling through an American political landscape “embroiled” in its first presidential election that was contested and settled in Congress. Thus, Lafayette winds up meeting with the four presidential candidates: John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State and the eventual winner of the 1824 election. In addition, he met with William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Brother Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives at the time, and Most Worshipful Brother Andrew Jackson, Senator from Tennessee, and future President of the United States. Throughout his tour he also met the following three future presidents: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Brother James K. Polk. I do not think that any foreign dignitary has personally known 10 or more American Presidents in their lifetime, (the deceased George Washington being the 10th), except for Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. Lafayette’s tour of course included visits with Freemasons throughout the nation, which I will now elaborate about in this article.
Snodgrass and Demott in their book gave a brief description of Lafayette’s particular visit to Nashville Tennessee, and his reception by the Grand Lodge. “The Grand Lodge, together with Cumberland Lodge 8 and Nashville Lodge 37, and three Royal Arch Chapters at Nashville, Franklin, and Clarksville, united in one of the most memorable occasions in the annals of Tennessee Freemasonry.” Grand Master Wilkins Tannehill, Tennessee’s most famous Freemason, convened a meeting of the Grand Lodge on the 4th of May 1825. Lafayette was officially introduced by Past Grand Master Andrew Jackson to the Grand Lodge. Lafayette “was received with the Grand Honors and seated on the right of the Grand Master, who addressed him in the most eloquent terms and officially informed him that he had been unanimously elected an Honorary Member of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee.” I include a portion of GM Tannehill’s oration and Lafayette’s similarly eloquent response so that the reader can get a sense of the mutual feeling of brotherly love that all in attendance felt that day, as well as the patriotic pride that so naturally welled up in the breasts of all who attended the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee’s most momentous meeting in its history.
In this assembly you do not behold around you your companions in arms in that glorious struggle in which you bore so distinguished a part, yet, in that trying and eventual contest on which hung the fate of millions, but which eventuated in the separation of these now prosperous and happy States from the dominions of a foreign crown, and in the establishment of a free and independent government upon the legitimate basis of equal rights; yet, Sir and Brother, you are surrounded by their sons, who, we trust, know how to estimate the value of that liberty you so eminently contributed to obtain, and who from early youth have been taught to venerate your character, and revere those virtues which were so conspicuously displayed in the youthful hero of Brandywine, of Monmouth, and of York… Permit me now, Sir, as an individual, to express the high gratification which I feel in being the organ of my brethren on this interesting occasion, and to say, that I shall look back upon the day on which I took Lafayette by the hand as a brother, as the proudest of my existence.
Lafayette’s response to this momentous honor is as follows.
He felt highly gratified at being so kindly welcomed by the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, and at being made an honorary member of that Lodge, in which he had been introduced by the distinguished brother Mason [Andrew Jackson] who had erected the lines of New Orleans, and, in technical language of the Craft, had made them ‘well-formed, true, and trusty.’…He had never for a moment ceased to love and venerate the institution, and was, therefore, peculiarly delighted to see that it had spread its genial influence thus far to the West, and that his brethren here were not only comfortably, but brilliantly accommodated. He considered the Order as peculiarly valuable in this country, where it not only fostered the principles of religious and civil liberty, but was eminently calculated to link the extremities of this wide republic together, and to perpetuate, by its fraternizing influence, the union of States.
In addition, during Lafayette’s four day stay in Tennessee a magnificent parade and Masonic dinner was held in his honor. During his Masonic visit in Nashville Lafayette was introduced to several dignitaries eager to meet the “French hero of the Revolution.” Two such dignitaries were the future President and Brother James K. Polk, and Brother Samuel Houston who won his fame in the Texas Revolution of 1835.
According to newspaper accounts, the most patriotic display of affection shown to Lafayette on his “Grand Tour” took place during the momentous ceremony on June 17, 1825, in Boston. The purpose of that “emotionally stirring” ceremony was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Approximately 200,000 citizens lined the roads leading up to the” hallowed ground;” where 50 years earlier Lafayette fighting alongside American Colonials proved, for the first time, that they possessed the necessary mettle to stand their ground and fight the British forces in order to gain their liberty. “The ceremonies on Bunker Hill that day began with the dedication of a monument memorializing the battle. Lafayette, a grand master of the Masonic order, was called upon to lay the cornerstone—a ceremonial task he had happily performed previously for a number of buildings and monuments on his tour.”
Another incredible fact that proved how revered Lafayette was by our nation’s citizenry is that “over 600 American villages, cities, counties, mountains, lakes, rivers, educational institutions and other landmarks would bear his name.” Speaking of bearing Lafayette’s name, I had what I call my own “brush with Lafayette history” as I was transcribing to a computer data base the past membership records of my Lodge, Pleasant Grove No. 138. Our Lodge had a Brother named Washington Lafayette Jefferson Wilkes, who was born on the 28th of September 1824; just one month after Lafayette arrived in New York harbor to embark on his “Grand Tour.” No doubt in my mind that this baby naming is further proof of how Lafayette’s visit “touched the lives” of so many Americans.
The most “bitter-sweet” portion of “Lafayette’s Grand Tour” had to be his visit to Virginia; affectionately known as the “Old Dominion.” It was the birthplace as well as the final resting place of the one man whom he could no longer greet in the flesh, past president and Brother George Washington. When Lafayette first travelled to America and offered his services in the fight for liberty and democracy he met with General Washington. Both men would fondly relate in later accounts of their meeting on how they both took an instant liking to each other, which quickly grew into a bond of friendship and eventually a familial love. Lafayette’s father had passed away when he was 13 years old, and Washington never had children of his own. Thus, both men formed a father-son like relationship with each other. One can only imagine that 30 years of pent-up emotions and memories of his “adopted” father, George Washington, must have overwhelmed Lafayette when he attended a Masonic meeting in February of 1825 at Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22. “There he changed into the Masonic garments worn by the esteemed former president of the United States and leading Mason of Virginia.” What an emotional night for all that had to be!
Needless to say, there are so many more magnificent and heart felt accounts of “Lafayette’s Grand Tour” that I could not include in this article due to space limitations. However, I hope that this short account has “whetted the Masonic reader’s appetite” to further gain an appreciation for the grandeur that our “ancient” Brethren were regaled with during “Lafayette’s Grand Tour.” I am certain that there will never be such a momentous Masonic event to take place in my lifetime. Alas, I will have to satisfy myself with written accounts to serve as my “time machine;” so that I may be “transported back” to that “august” historical time in order to “witness” the most tremendous Masonic event to take place in American history.