Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: Through Seneca Falls, East Cayuga Then A Masonic Welcome And A Final Adieu In Auburn

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In Auburn, Lafayette met at “Hudson’s Hotel” a.k.a. Western Exchange Hotel Genesee St. Image circa 1840. From the collection of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Auburn, NY

As early as May 12^th, 1825, the Village of Auburn expected Lafayette to travel through their growing community. Seventeen men, including two future governors of New York State were appointed to a committee charged with the purpose of preparing for the visit of the French general and American hero. They were “to make suitable arrangements for the occasion; and that they be requested to communicate the doings of this meeting, to the proper military officers, the masonick order, and the surviving revolutionary officers and soldiers, inviting them to co-operate with the citizens of the village, in the proposed expressions of publick attention, to the venerable ‘Guest of our Nation,’ and its early defender.”¹

A few days later, on May 16^th, the officers of the militia met at Strong’s tavern. Led by Brigadier General Henry R. Brinkerhoff, they, too, formed a committee to prepare for Lafayette’s visit. This committee contained a total of sixteen men, all different from the previous committee and all in charge of specific military units.²

Brigadier General Brinkerhoff immediately dispatched a letter to the local newspaper. Addressed “To The Soldiers of the Revolution,” he informed them of Lafayette’s impending arrival and requested they participate in the reception. He wrote, “Come forward then, and greet your long-departed friend: Come, and welcome him whom our nation delights to honour as her guest.” At the same time, he also stated “field and commissioned staff officers will be mounted, and none but such as are in full uniform will be permitted to form in the escort.” All others could come in civilian dress and march in the procession.³

Word finally came on Tuesday, June 7, 1825, that General Lafayette would soon arrive. To spread the word to everyone in the village and surrounding area, handbills were printed and distributed. In addition, the militia fired a volley of 13 guns to alert those in communities further away.⁴

The Auburn Press gleefully reported the news that day. It did, however, regret that this news forced the paper to omit “printing our remarks respecting Gershom Powers’ accounts this week, by reason of the press of office business, preparatory to the arrival of Gen. La Fayette; (although we extremely dislike to mention his name in the same paragraph with that of Mr. Powers).”⁵

Located on the right-of-way of the Seneca Turnpike, Auburn was a tavern stop for those emigrating to the west. Some decided to stay. The population had doubled in size between 1815 and 1820. By 1825, the population was 2,982.⁶ It was much larger on June 8^th.

At 9 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, June 8, 1825, Captain Benjamin C. Cox of the 13th Regimental Cavalry assembled his company along with several carriages and off-duty officers on horseback. They rode west on the old Genesee Road for 9 miles until they reached the county line at Cayuga bridge. There, they waited. And waited.⁷

At about 4 P.M. they saw the parade from Waterloo approaching. General Lafayette and his party rode in the same barouche provided by W.S. De Zeng, Esq. of Geneva. Pulled by six chestnut horses, the carriage came to a stop upon meeting the Auburn committee.⁸

On behalf of the committee, Enos Thomas Throop, formally welcomed the General. Throop, a former Congressman, was at the time a judge on the Seventh Circuit. Within four years, he would become New York State’s tenth Governor. After greeting the French visitor, Throop then introduced Lafayette to the men and women who took the steamboat from the village of Aurora to witness this historic event. When asked, the General “politely consented to appear upon the piazza of Mr. Woolsey’s Hotel, and the welkin rang with the three times three of the people.” This impromptu reception ended at five o’clock.⁹

Judge Throop joined Lafayette in DeZeng’s carriage as the procession departed for Auburn. As they rode, throngs of citizens lined the turnpike, cheering them on.¹⁰

About 90 minutes later, the parade arrived at the outskirts of the Village of Auburn. There, Captain James Fitch and his Auburn Guards, along with Captain Murphy with his company of Rifle Corps and a Company from Port-Byron under the command of Captain Parks, waited to receive the Nation’s Guest.¹¹

At this point, where the road rises at the western boundary of the Village, stood an elegant arched bower of shrubbery, built specially for this occasion. In addition to the uniformed troops, nearly 200 Masons and a large number of Revolutionary War veterans stood on either side of the street. As the procession passed, they joined it in an orderly fashion and proceeded under and through the arch.¹²

To give a clear sense of what was happening, take a look at how newspapers of the day reported the event:

“…an immense concourse of citizens, who had assembled from all parts of the county, to see him, who has excited the admiration and the gratitude of every American heart. The ear was almost deafened with the loud acclamations of our fellow-citizens, who cheered their guest with the greatest enthusiasm, and made the welkin ring with these expressions of their feelings – at the same time, the deep thunder of the ordnance, uniting with the merry peals of the bells, gave to the whole a grandeur that affected every sense.”¹³

“On the procession passing the Arch, surrounded by an immense concourse of the people, who had poured into the village from all quarters, a salute of 24 guns was fired, by a company stationed on an eminence a few rods distant; the bells commenced a merry peal; the citizens with one accord closed their stores, and in the midst of repeated shouts of joy that made the ‘welkin ring,’ and covered with clouds of dust, under a broiling sun, the veteran Chief rode uncovered through Genesee, North and other streets, to Hudson’s Hotel.”¹⁴

Lafayette’s carriage passed through a double line of troops who presented arms as the General alighted. The committee escorted him, along with his son and Levasseur, to the awning covered piazza of the second story.¹⁵ Before nearly eight thousand people – four times the population of the Village of Auburn – General Lafayette was introduced to the Honorable John Whitefield Hulbert (a former Congressman from Massachusetts and a recently retired Assemblyman representing Cayuga County) and to the Reverend Dirck C. Lansing, venerable pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Hulbert represented the citizens and Lansing represented the Masons. Each addressed the General as follows:¹⁶

Hon. John W. Hulbert’s Address:

“General,—The people of this village, and of the surrounding country, most respectfully and affectionately welcome you among them. They rejoice in this opportunity afforded them, of testifying to you, personally, their admiration of your character, and their gratitude for the great and inestimable services, which you have rendered to their country.

Few of us have ever had the happiness, until this day, to behold your face. But where is the American, who would not blush to own his ignorance of the might things you have done for this nation?

We know that in the dark and perilous day of our revolutionary struggle, when the world looked upon our cause as desperate, when tyrants were rejoicing, and the lovers of freedom were weeping, at our expected downfall—yes, at that hour, when even Hope scarcely dared to linger among us, a light suddenly broke through the gloom—You, general, was [sic] that light! Like the angel of deliverance, you came to our assistance.

We know that you came not to seek for wealth, ease, or safety. No, you left them all in your native land, and hastened to a foreign country, to [a] land of strangers, where you exhausted your wealth, and poured out your blood, in the cause of an oppressed people struggling for liberty.

You raised, in this country, numerous troops, fed and clothed them upon your bounty, and led them yourself into the hottest battle. And, finally, your noble and enthusiastick spirit roused a nation in our defense.

When the object of your heart was accomplished, when you say our liberty and independence firmly established, you most generously refused all pecuniary compensation. You asked for no reward.—But surely you have received a rich reward in your own consciousness of the good you have done, in beholding the flourishing and happy condition of the country you defended, in the warm and universal gratitude of its people, and in the admiration and applause of all the truly good and virtuous through the world.

We regret that in your progress through this country you should have had any other than an unmingled emotion of pleasure. But we know that you must have had some reflections, which could not fail to give pain to a heart like yours.—Where, now, are those brave and generous men who were engaged with you in the mighty contest? Where are those who fought by your side in fields of immortal fame? You have found them few in number; yes, you have found them like lonely and shattered trees in the desolate path of the whirlwind.

You behold a small group of revolutionary soldiers. Providence has sustained them for this glorious day. Their locks are whitened with the frosts of age; the furrows of time are mixed with the scars of battle; yet their eyes are glistening with joy at sight of you.

But where is your beloved Washington? – Alas, the grave has closed over his body; but never, never, shall it close of his or your renown. You have visited Mount Vernon; you have been near his cold remains – No, cold we will not say, for we will believe, that when La Fayette was kneeling at the tomb of Washington, he immortal spirit was there, and ‘even in his ashes lived their wonted fires.’

We have noticed with priced and with pleasure the course you have pursued since you was last among us. Neither the frowns of kings, the horrors of a dungeon, not threatened death have ever paralyzed your exertions in the great and sacred cause of the rights of man.

Be assured that we shall never forget the satisfaction, which your presence has this day afforded us. Occasions like this will be rare on earth; – they will be ‘like angels’ visits, few, and far between.’

We offer you, General, our best wishes, and our fervent prayers, that after you shall return to the land of your nativity, you may enjoy many years of health and happiness, and that the termination of your bright career on earth may be the commencement of one still brighter, more glorious, and more happy, in the world where virtue like yours will meet, we trust, a blessed and everlasting reward.”¹⁷

Rev. Dirck C. Lansing’s Address:

“My Dear General,—Great men are the instruments, by which the Supreme Ruler of the Universe accomplishes the designs of his benevolence. Would he exhibit, as a subject of admiration to the civilized population of our world, the happiness of which his creatures are capable, under the most perfect form of human governments, where the social, civil, political, and religious rights of the people, are the result of voluntary combination, he raises up a nation of freemen, who make their own laws, create and change their own rulers, and retain in their own hands the sovereign  power. Such a nation is ours. In those events which gave birth to these free and independent United States, we are furnished with peculiar displays of the resources of divine wisdom, and the energy of divine power.—We discover, most signally, the hand of the great Arbiter of nations, in raising up in one quarter of the globe, a Washington, and in another, a La Fayette, to become the champions of liberty, and the defenders of the rights of man.

In the departed heroes of our revolution, and in yourself, a most distinguished survivor of them, we recognize, under God, the authors of our free and happy institutions. You adopted our infant country as the object of your patriotick care, and consecrated to it, your talents, your fortune, and your life. After a long absence you have returned to behold the fruits of your early toil, and may I not be permitted to add, to delight yourself in their abundance. The boldest spirit of prophecy, would scarcely have ventured to predict, what your eyes have seen, and your ears have heard.—‘The wilderness has been converted into a fruitful field, and the solitary has become as the garden of the Lord.’ The patriot can desire no higher reward, than the pleasure to be derived from contemplating, as the result of his efforts, more than then millions of freemen, the admiration, and the fear of imperial courts the world over. The happiness to be received, from looking at an object, so interesting & commanding, is yours. Your hands have contributed, in no small measure, towards erecting this fair fabric of freedom. The sons and daughters of your coadjutors, in the scenes of the revolution, greet you as their benefactor, and would be delighted to impart to you, any portion of the country you gave them, as a peaceful home for the evening of your days. ‘He who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,’ your companion in arms, the immortal Washington, the statesman, the hero, and the Christian, has for years been gathered to the tombs of his fathers. You have knelt in the place, and have wept over the ashes of the illustrious dead. The hearts of his liberated children have dictated his epitaph. ’Tis the proudest and richest that can perpetuate the memory of man—‘Here lie the Father of his country.’ When La Fayette shall resign his breath to that mighty Being, who raised him up for noble deeds, the children of this father will write upon his tomb-stone, ‘Here lies the friend of Washington.’

On behalf of the fraternity of free & accepted Masons, as their organ, you will accept, dear sir, the assurance of our high respect, & our grateful recollection of the distinguished blessings which we enjoy, as the fruits of the toils of your patriotism, and the sacrifices of your benevolence. May you at last find a home in the upper Temple of the Eternal, and may the blessedness of our heavenly Father’s house be yours, as the purchase of the blood of our glorious Redeemer.”¹⁸

In his entire year-long journey across the United States of America, Dirck Lansing’s presentation represents the only time Lafayette was addressed in public by the Masons. All other times, as in Lockport and Waterloo, Lafayette’s meetings with the Masonic fraternity were held in private either in a lodge or at a Masonic Banquet.¹⁹

General Lafayette offered a brief but polite reply. Once this portion of the ceremony concluded, the General then directed a few words to the crowd. He then met with members of the Masonic order, Revolutionary War veterans, officers of the militia, the local clergy, and many ladies who accompanied them. At 8 o’clock, the assembly gathered to a temporary arbor in a nearby field where Emmanuel Hudson provided an “excellent dinner.”²⁰

At the dinner, the following toasts have been recorded:

“By Col. J.W. Hulbert. The Nation’s Guest.²¹

By Gen. La Fayette. Cayuga county and Auburn town—May their republican industry and prosperity, more and more give a splendid lie to the enemies of liberty, equality and self-government.²¹

By Major Smith. The health of G. W. LaFayette.²²

By Mr. G.W. La Fayette. A sovereign whose power is felt only when it is wanted—the people.²¹

The other toasts were given by the gentlemen of the General’s suite, copies of which were handed to the chairman, but we regret to say were mislaid.²¹

By Mr. G.A. Gamage. The eternal continuance of the affections of the American people towards the greatest surviving apostle of freedom on earth – La Fayette.²¹

By the Hon. G. Powers. The memory of Steuben and Pulaski.²¹

By Mr. W.H. Seward. Our guest – A safe return to, and happy meeting with his family at La Grange.²¹

By Mr. J. Pease. Gen. Bolivar, the hero of South America.”²¹

After dinner, everyone went to the lavishly decorated Brown’s Assembly-Room for a Ball. “Here a brilliant circle of the beauty and fashion of the village and vicinity, received the Nation’s benefactor, in a manner highly grateful to his feelings. The Hall was very tastefully dressed in shrubbery of various kinds, and in different places appeared the mottos:

‘Washington and La Fayette,’
‘Monmouth and Yorktown,’
‘Nation’s Guest,’
‘Kosciusko Pulaski De Kalb Steuben,’

and over two seperate [sic] arches, a line each, of the following couplet, in letters of evergreen:

‘There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,/To keep watch for the life of the Guest,’
(in allusion to the recent narrow escape of the General on board the Steam boat Mechanic.)”²³

Following the festivities, Lafayette and his suite once again stepped into a carriage. Mr. J.M. Sherwood  graciously volunteered his horses and drivers to convey the guest to their next destination.²⁴ At 11 P.M. the party, along with the Committee of arrangements, departed Auburn for Syracuse, by way of Skeneateles.²⁵

One local paper summarized the day:

“On the whole, such a display was never before witnessed in Auburn; for we have never had an occasion which has so fully elicited the warmest affections of the heart, or aroused the pulsations of patriotism in our bosoms, as that which we have just hastily described. The veterans of the revolution rejoiced to see their old comrade; and all remembered, with gratitude, the disinterestedness, the love of liberty, and the valour of him to whom they were doing honor.”²⁶

Among the Committee that led the illustrious Lafayette to Syracuse included “a fair-haired youth of twenty-four” by the name of William Henry Seward.²⁷ Destined to become New York’s twelfth governor, he’s perhaps best known for “Seward’s Folly,” the 1867 purchase of Alaska.

As Lafayette leaves the Greater Western New York Region, it seems appropriate to leave the reader with the General’s own thoughts, as recounted by his traveling secretary André-Nicolas Levasseur:

“This journey confirmed us in the opinion, that no part of America, or, perhaps, of the whole world, contains so many wonders of nature as the state of New York. The lakes of Canandaigua, Seneca and Cayuga, appeared delightful to us from the purity of their waters, the form of their basins, and the richness of their banks. The sight of all these beauties, and still more the kindness and urbanity of the population through which we travelled, often made General Lafayette regret the rapidity with which he travelled. During this journey of upwards of one hundred and thirty miles by land, we travelled night and day, only stopping for a few moments at each village, to enjoy the entertainments, prepared by the inhabitants in honour of their beloved guest, who, said they, by the simplicity, the amenity and uniformity of his manners, towards all classes of citizens, completed the conquest of all hearts, already devoted to him from his adherence to the cause of America in particular, and that of liberty in general.”²⁸

Next: Lafayette’s Legacy

¹ “La Fayette,” Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, May 18, 1825, p.2
² Ibid
³ “To The Soldiers of the Revolution,” Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, May 25, 1825, p.2
⁴ Auburn Republican, Wednesday, June 15, 1825 [via Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.410]
⁵ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 8, 1825, p.2
⁶ Hall, Henry, The History of Auburn, Dennis Bro’s & Co., Auburn, NY, 1869, p. 172
⁷ Auburn Republican
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Cayuga Patriot, Wednesday, June 15, 1825 [via Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.410]
¹⁰ Auburn Republican
¹¹ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
¹² Auburn Republican
¹³ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
¹⁴ Auburn Republican, Wednesday, June 15, 1825 [via Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.411]
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.479
²⁰ Auburn Republican, Wednesday, June 15, 1825 [via Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.413]
²¹ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
²² Cayuga Patriot
²³ Auburn Republican, Wednesday, June 15, 1825 [via Brandon, Edgar Ewing, A Pilgrimage of Liberty, The Lawhead Press, Athens, Ohio, 1944, p.414]
²⁴ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
²⁵ Auburn Republican
²⁶ Auburn Free Press, Wednesday, June 15, 1825, p.2
²⁷ Seward, Olive Risley, “The Marquis De Lafayette. His Great Service to our Country and His Visit to Chautauqua County,” The Centennial History of Chautauqua County Vol I, Chautauqua History Company, Jamestown, 1904, p. 454
²⁸ Levasseur, André-Nicolas, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, Volume II, John D. Godman translation, Philadelphia, Carey and Lea, 1829, p. 193-194