The Marquis de Lafayette Spent 36 Hours In Cincinnati And Left 200 Years Of Mysteries
It appears that the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, had the power to cloud men’s minds. That is the only possible explanation for the varied and confused memories of his brief visit to Cincinnati over May 19 and May 20, 1825.
Bless The American Friends of Lafayette, who will attempt to commemorate the bicentennial of the French general’s residency in Cincinnati on May 19 and May 20 of this year. The celebrants face a daunting task because nothing Lafayette saw in Cincinnati still exists – even the Public Landing was moved two blocks east from where our hero first stepped foot in the Queen City. The modern organizers will bravely soldier on, with a free and open welcoming ceremony at 11:00 a.m. Monday, May 19, at what is now the Public Landing, a commemorative dinner and ball, and a remembrance of Lafayette’s “adopted daughter,” Fanny Wright, on whom more anon. https://lafayette200.org/event/bicentennial-of-lafayettes-tour-visits-cincinnati-oh/
The clouded recollections may be forgiven when we consider the absolute chaos that reigned in our fair city during Lafayette’s stay. In 1825, Cincinnati’s total population was somewhere around 15,000. It is estimated that 50,000 people from hundreds of miles away crowded into town to catch a glimpse of the man of the hour. Just remember (or not) that porta-potties were far in the future.
Everyone seems to agree that Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in Cincinnati at noon on Thursday, May 19, 1825. He was nearing the conclusion of a year-long victory lap through the nation he helped create, poised then to celebrate its semicentennial. On the invitation of U.S. President James Monroe, Lafayette, sailed the Atlantic as “The Nation’s Guest” and spent 15 months revisiting old battlefields and new states, while collecting a $200,000 reimbursement for expenses incurred during the American Revolution.
Everyone also agrees that Lafayette departed Cincinnati at midnight on Friday, May 20, 36 hours after his arrival. There is solid consensus that he enjoyed a couple of banquets, a fireworks display, a visit to the theater, a museum, a Masonic lodge named in his honor, a gigantic parade and abundant speechifying during his visit. It’s the details that get fuzzy after centuries of nostalgia.
Accompanied by Joseph Desha, the governor of Kentucky, and other Bluegrass dignitaries who traveled with him on his journey north from Lexington, Lafayette arrived in Covington at 10:00 a.m. on May 19. To this day, there are legends that claim he enjoyed a fancy ball and a night of rest at Covington’s Carneal House. There is even a ghost story about a young lady who, refused a dance with the general, hanged herself and continues to haunt the place. Highly unlikely, since Lafayette departed Covington just two hours later at noon and did not return, of which more anon. If the good general stopped at the Carneal House, it would have been little more than a lunch break, or perhaps a trip to the “necessary.”
Lafayette proceeded to the banks of the Ohio, boarded a festive barge rowed by six stalwart Cincinnati youth and was deposited on the Public Landing at the foot of Main Street, today a location approximately near the intersection of Joe Nuxhall Way and Barry Larkin Way, where the welcoming committee led by Ohio Governor Jeremiah Morrow had rolled out a lush carpet of red velvet. The Nation’s Guest declined to tread upon the ostentatious upholstery, according to the 1943 WPA Guide to Cincinnati, remarking that “the soil of America is good enough for me.” That is a beautiful and memorable quote reported by none of the contemporary newspapers.
Also reported long after the fact was the quandary of a delegation from Covington. Lafayette, as noted, passed quickly through that town on his way to Cincinnati. Our transpontine neighbors sent a delegation over the Ohio River to entice the General back for a lengthier social call. On getting within earshot of their quarry, however, several of the delegation remembered that they were, in fact, wanted by the Cincinnati authorities for non-payment of various debts and swiftly hustled homeward.
Over the years, many prominent Cincinnati families have insisted Lafayette was an overnight guest in their homes. Future proprietors of the Cincinnati Hotel at the corner of Front Street and Broadway claimed that honor too, but, although Lafayette held receptions and attended a grand ball there, he slept not a wink at that establishment. Nor did he sleep next-door at the home of attorney Morgan Neville, son of General Presley Neville, who had served as Lafayette’s aide de camp throughout the Revolution. Likewise, he did not sleep under the roof of Major Daniel Gano, whose grandfather was Lafayette’s brigade chaplain, although the Gano farm out at the rural intersection of Sixth and Main streets was the site of a huge reception and fireworks display. Lafayette did not even visit the “country home” of Judge Jacob Burnet at Seventh and Elm streets, though his descendants insisted he slumbered there. General Lafayette in fact spent the night at the home of Christian Febiger on the west side of Vine Street between Fourth and Fifth, Febiger being the adopted son of General Hans Christian Febiger, known as the “old Dane,” who fought with Lafayette at Brandywine and Yorktown.
On awakening Friday morning, the General was treated to a grand parade from the Public Landing up Main Street to a pavilion decorated with ivy and roses, where he was serenaded with songs, lauded with speeches and entertained by hordes of schoolgirls casting flowers wherever he walked. Today, the location of this pavilion is a complete mystery. It has been variously described as “on the vacant ground west of the Courthouse,” or somewhere on Court Street, or on an otherwise unspecified “open plane [sic] in the rear of the town” or at “a large square near the court-house” or at “the common above Eighth street, west of Walnut” and even at “a grove that was later the site of Schaller's brewery, not far from the location of Music Hall.” Yet another report put it on Plum Street near the canal.
Emil Klauprecht, in his 1864 German-language history of Cincinnati, relates a quite touching story connected to a failed attempt to free Lafayette when he was imprisoned in Austria during the French Revolution:
“Brushing past the guards before the steps of the pavilion, a plainly dressed, peasant-looking woman gained the platform and rushed over to greet the General. Murmurs of protest ran through the crowd. ‘Order! Order!’ thundered the Chairman. Impulsively the woman extended her hand. ‘Don't you remember me?’ she asked. Disconcerted, Lafayette stepped back. ‘My good woman,’ he said, ‘I don't recall ever having seen you before.’ ‘Why, General, don't you recognize the dairy woman who brought you messages from Herr Bollmann when you were in prison at Olmütz?’ Lafayette's expression changed from bewilderment to pleased surprise. Heartily he grasped the hand of the friendly conspirator whom chance had brought to this western country. The woman whose impetuosity had interrupted Lafayette's speech was identified as Frau Caroline Mundhenk, who lived down town on an alley between Wayne and St. Clair streets. A grower of herbs, she was known to many who patronized the city's street markets.”
Despite Klauprecht’s detailed recollection, none of the contemporary reports mention this interruption, but several later reminiscences describe an unnamed German woman reminding Lafeyette that she had provided him with three francs and a cup of milk on his release from Olmütz prison.
A member of the welcoming committee, State Senator William S. Hatch, writing in the Enquirer almost 50 years later, recalls Lafayette’s visit lasting four days instead of two.
Much in the manner of the various old inns claiming “Washington slept here,” Cincinnati businesses exaggerated their connection to Lafayette. Haberdasher Platt Evans boasted that Lafayette ordered a suit from his shop, though there is no record he was ever inside. Sculptor Frederick Eckstein supposedly made a plaster cast of the Lafayette, but where he found time to do so is hard to fathom. Eckstein did produce a very nice bust of the General, now in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Perhaps the most curious artifact resulting from Lafayette’s visit emerged several years after the fact. In 1828, Frances “Fanny” Trollope descended upon Cincinnati, accompanied by a French artist named Auguste-Jean-Jacques Hervieu. Throughout the two years that Cincinnati endured Mrs. Trollope, who would later vent abundant spleen about her treatment in the Queen City, Hervieu labored on a huge sixteen foot by twelve foot canvas depicting the arrival of LaFayette in Cincinnati. Of course, Hervieu was not present at that event but that didn’t matter. Many of the people Hervieu packed into his masterpiece – including future sculptor Hiram Powers, utopianist Robert Owen, a Native American woman and magazine editor Timothy Flint – weren’t there either. Hervieu’s canvas occupied the precise dimensions of the still empty panels in the United States Capitol. It is obvious where Hervieu hoped his historic fantasy would eventually be displayed. He died disappointed.
And then, especially confounding, was the woman no one talked about. Throughout his journeys in America, Lafayette, aged 68, was accompanied by Frances “Fanny” Wright, aged 30, a woman he considered his adopted daughter. Born in Scotland, Wright became known as the “Red Harlot of Infidelity” because of her writing in support free love, equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery, liberalized divorce, birth control and her opposition to organized religion and capitalism. Lafayette shared many of her views and promoted Wright as his protégé. She was with Lafayette every step of his visit, including a two-week stay with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello and formal introductions to Presidents James Madison and John Quincy Adams and future President General Andrew Jackson.
His Highness Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, in his “Travels Through North America During the Years 1825 and 1826,” sniffed:
“In these peregrinations I made inquiries after Miss Wright, who, some years ago, published letters in America, which excited much attention in Europe, as well as in America. I was told that this lady with her sister, unattended by a male protector, had roved through the country, in steam-boats and stages, that she constantly tagged about after General LaFayette, and whenever the general arrived at any place, Miss Wright was sure to follow next day.”
Not a single contemporary newspaper mentioned Wright’s presence in Cincinnati during LaFayette’s stay. André-Nicolas Levasseur, Lafayette’s secretary throughout this pilgrimage, in his very detailed published journal, wastes not a single word on her at all.
Wright spent her last eight years on Earth as a resident of Cincinnati and she is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery. It is therefore fitting that Frances “Fanny” Wright will be remembered as part of the LaFayette bicentennial celebration at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 20, when Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, co-producers of a Frances Wright podcast; Julien Icher, president and founder of The Lafayette Trail Inc.; Chuck Schwam, executive director of the American Friends of Lafayette and others will present a tribute to Fanny Wright at the Rose Garden gazebo at Spring Grove Cemetery. The event, righting two centuries of wrongful omission, is free and open to the public.
