Catskill to mark visit of Revolutionary War hero

The marker was placed through the cooperation of the Greene County government and its placement on the courthouse lawn was doubly appropriate, according to Greene County Historian Jonathan Palmer. The sign commemorates one of the great heroes of American Democracy at the seat of democratic rule in Greene County, and is also located at the precise intersection where Lafayette met with delegates from the community two centuries ago.

Icher and his organization have been working for years to research and get markers installed in advance of the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s visit and the 250th anniversary of American independence, according to Palmer.

Catskill’s marker is one in a growing series of markers across the eastern United States honoring this historic event. The new red, white and blue marker in Catskill is number 80 in this developing series, Palmer wrote in his Oct. 26, 2022, column published in The Daily Mail. Following is a partial reprint of the column.

Lafayette’s visit was a momentous occasion not just because Lafayette was one of the Nation’s first great celebrities, but also due to Lafayette’s distinction as being one of the last living heroes of the American Revolution. As the nation approached its 50th anniversary patriotic sentiments were at an all-time high. A new generation of statesmen and politicians were busy contesting the inherited burden of perpetuating American democracy, and the public was keenly sensitive to the bittersweet reality of a young nation which was suddenly on the cusp of outliving the people who had first initiated the democratic experiment. In the

midst of this turmoil and against the backdrop of the chaotic election of 1824 appears the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the last living field commanders of the Revolution who was instrumental in securing French assistance during the war. To say that the American public was excited by his arrival would be a gross understatement of the unparalleled celebratory receptions he received at every stop in every state he visited.

In the four decades since his last visit to the United States Lafayette had committed himself wholeheartedly to perpetuating the democratic ideals which had first drawn him as an 18-year-old youth to the American cause. He had leveraged his personal wealth, safety and social standing on battlefields in America and in the Estates-General of the ill-fated French Republic. He had dined with kings and served time as a political prisoner, and throughout maintained a dignity and self-assurance in his cause that elevated him to nearirreproachable hero status in both the nation of his birth and his adoptive United States. Lafayette created the original draft of the French Republic’s Declaration of the Rights of Man, and steered a middle road through the violence of the French Revolution which won him enemies in both Jacobin and Monarchist circles. His return to the United States in advance of the nation’s 50th anniversary was conducted at the invitation of President James Monroe.

News of Lafayette’s journey up the Hudson aboard the steamboat James Kent reached Catskill well ahead of the Marquis himself, and by five in the morning on Sept. 17, 1824 the entire village was already awake making final preparations in anticipation of the General’s arrival.

To read the full column, visit https://www.hudsonvalley360.com/opinion/columnists/greene-history-notes-for-oct-27-2022/article_a1d04282-d975-5e4f-88b2-5c686e1be63a.html