Previous: Gaslighting The General 

The trot to Fredonia was anything but quick. The Buffalo and Erie Road turned out to be less “finished” than Joseph Ellicott had hoped. André-Nicolas Levasseur, one of Lafayette’s traveling party who would eventually publish an extensive journal of the General’s American Farewell Tour, went out of his way to point out the poor condition of the Main road between “Portland” (a.k.a. “Westfield”) and Fredonia.

“On leaving Portland,” wrote Levasseur, “yielding to the fatigue of the preceding days, we were sleeping in the carriage notwithstanding the violent jolting occasioned by the trunks of the trees forming the road over which we were rapidly passing.”¹

Ellicott had rather strict guidelines for those he hired to clear roads, especially when it Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: Fast Fredonia Frenzy”