Program

Lafayette Trail

Subject

Event, People, Site

Location

3 N William St, Johnstown, NY 12095, USA

Lat/Long

43.00668049614, -74.374010494433

Grant Recipient

The Lafayette Trail, Inc.

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), was a French nobleman and captain in the French Dragoons. In April 1777, Lafayette sailed on the Victoire, a ship built with his personal funds, for North America to serve as a military leader in the American Revolution, despite a royal decree prohibiting French officers from serving. Shortly after his arrival, the Continental Congress commissioned him as a major general serving under George Washington.  Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, Lafayette managed to organize a successful Patriot retreat. Early in 1779, he returned to France to negotiate an increase in support from the French government, securing thousands of French troops to fight for the American cause. As one of three division commanders, Lafayette played a pivotal role in the 1781 Battle of Yorktown. He succeeded in containing Lord Cornwallis’s men, allowing time for additional French and American forces to arrive and lay siege to the British troops, forcing Cornwallis to surrender and ensuring American victory.

An ardent supporter of the United States’ constitutional principles, Lafayette called on all nations to follow the American example. After returning to France at the conclusion of the American Revolution, Lafayette drafted Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen, advocating for religious toleration and an end to slavery. Prior to his death in 1834, he expressed the wish to be buried under soil taken from Bunker Hill in Boston. His son Georges Washington Lafayette complied with the wish, spreading the soil in the burial site.

Links

• The Lafayette Trail