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”
Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: To The Dunkirk Dinghy By The Dawn’s Early Light
Previous: Dunkirk, The Last Frontier
Walter Smith, from The Centennial History of Chautauqua County Vol I, p.355
Walter Smith was there, no doubt in front of the crowd of people riding along with Lafayette. Unlike the fawning civilians eager to not let go of the Nation’s Guest, Smith wore the uniform of a Colonel, confidently in command of the militia regiment that received Lafayette. He even had an elegant sword draped from his belt.1
Major General Elijah Risley, Jr., father of nine-year-old Hiram (and future grandfather of Olive) strode with his military staff alongside Smith. With little notice, Smith was tabbed as marshal of the day.2 Both were businessmen, not full-time soldiers. Today, or rather this night turning into early morning, they faithfully presented all the martial pomp and circumstance proper in honoring the last surviving general of the American Revolution.
But there may have been more on the mind of Walter Smith. He wasn’t just a Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: To The Dunkirk Dinghy By The Dawn’s Early Light”