Lafayette's Tour

Clinton, CT

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.

Town of Bedford, NY

During the Revolutionary War, the high ground of Guard Hill offered a sweeping view over the surrounding Westchester countryside — the kind of vantage point that decided the fate of armies. It was important enough to be labeled "a commanding height" on the survey maps drawn by Robert Erskine, the Scottish-born engineer who served as Surveyor-General to the Continental Army and mapped the terrain George Washington's forces fought over. Throughout the war years, American observation patrols climbed to this summit to watch for enemy movement across a region that sat perilously between the British stronghold in New York City and the Patriot lines to the north.

New York, NY

In the spring of 1790, barely a year into his presidency and with the new federal government still finding its footing in nearby New York City, George Washington set out on a tour of Long Island, riding its country roads to see the land and meet the citizens of the young republic. This tablet marks one stretch of that journey through what is now Queens. It was placed in 1934 by the Matinecock Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, part of a nationwide effort in that era to fix the memory of the founding generation onto the everyday landscape.

Sturbridge, MA

In mid-August 1955, the remnants of back-to-back hurricanes — Connie and then Diane — dumped record-breaking rain on southern New England, and rivers like the Quinebaug that had long powered Sturbridge's mills exploded far over their banks. This mark records how high the floodwaters climbed on that catastrophic day, when whole downtowns, bridges, and factory districts across the region were submerged. The 1955 flood remains one of the worst natural disasters in New England's history, and communities set high-water marks like this one so no one would forget how far the water reached.