Lafayette's Tour
Clinton, Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region, Connecticut
Marker Inscription
LAFAYETTE'S TOUR ON AUGUST 21, 1824, GENERAL LAFAYETTE, TRAVELLING ON THE POST ROAD, WAS WELCOMED WITH MILITARY AND CIVIL HONORS IN KILLINGWORTH, NOW CLINTON. WILLIAM C. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2022
The Story
In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette — the French nobleman who had fought beside Washington a half-century earlier — returned to the United States as the 'Nation's Guest,' invited to tour the young republic he had helped create. Now an old man, he journeyed through all twenty-four states to rapturous crowds, and on August 21, 1824, that triumphal progress carried him along the old Post Road through this stretch of the Connecticut shore, then part of Killingworth. The town of Clinton would later be set off from Killingworth, but the memory of the day the Revolution's last great hero passed through, greeted with militia salutes and civic ceremony, stayed with the community.
Why it matters
Lafayette's 1824–25 farewell tour was a national rite of memory, letting a generation that had never known the Revolution touch its living legend — and roadside welcomes like this one wove small New England towns into that shared American story.
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Related people
- · Marquis de Lafayette
Related events
- · Lafayette's farewell tour of the United States (1824–1825)
Themes & tags
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