Bicentennial Events Added in Trenton on September 25 and 26
When America’s French founding father, the Marquis de Lafayette, visited Trenton, New Jersey, in 1824, he traveled from Princeton with the New Jersey governor in an open carriage drawn by four white horses followed by a train of citizens on horseback. He was joined near the city line by 2,000 county militiamen and was greeted at the head of Warren Street by cannon fire and the ringing of church bells, arriving for an official welcome by city and state leaders in the New Jersey State House.
Next week, exactly 200 years later to the hour, a reenactment of Lafayette’s visit will be subdued by comparison, but reenactor Michael Halbert will be received by the local officials in the same State House building, the nation’s third oldest, and feted that evening at the Historic Trenton Masonic Temple, around the corner from the City Tavern that hosted him in 1824.
The public is invited to register via the American Friends of Lafayette website to attend the State House reenactment at 3pm on Wednesday, September25 (arrive by 2:30) and to purchase tickets ($45) for the evening Grand Welcome Reception at the Historic Trenton Masonic Hall at 100 Barrack Street.
“Many historians believe Lafayette’s farewell tour was the second most important event in American history in the 1800s, after the Civil War, of course,” said Paul Larson of Lawrence Township, who is managing New Jersey’s commemoration of the Lafayette bicentennial. “Lafayette was the most popular person in America and attracted huge crowds. He was the original rockstar.”
Earlier in the day on September 25, Princeton University’s Sean Wilentz, the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History, will give a free public lecture, Lafayette and the Politics of Division, at the Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton at 10 am. “The Grand Farewell Tour of Lafayette in 1824 occurred during a polarizing presidential election that was pulling the country apart,” said Dr. Wilentz. “Two hundred years later, the nation is again deeply divided amid a pivotal election.”
Dr. Wilentz will discuss the Marquis de Lafayette, a strong abolitionist at a time when American politics was increasingly riven over slavery’s future in the new republic.
In 1824, September 26 fell on a Sunday and the Marquis de Lafayette attended services at the First Presbyterian Church of Trenton. The church building on the site, which still has the original bell rung for Lafayette’s visit in 1824, is currently transforming into the Steeple Center, and will host the events in the church yard, where Hessian troops who died in the Battle of Trenton are buried.
Now managed by the nonprofit 120 East State Street, the site of the church will host Lafayette reenactor Halbert on Thursday, September 26, for three events, starting with lunch at 11 AM, followed by a cemetery walk and wreath-laying at noon, and a reunion between reenactors of Lafayette and Hannah Till, the African American personal cook of George Washington who also cooked for Lafayette and was known to him as “Aunt Hannah.” Aged over 100 during his 1824 visit, Hannah Till received a visit by Lafayette during his Farewell Tour. She will be portrayed by Leslie Bramlett. Registration is required for the events at 120 East State Street website.
In addition to the in-person events, the Princeton University Firestone Library has created a virtual collection of items in its archives available to the public online. Among the items are a printed invitation to a ball in Yorktown, VA in 1824; an invitation to a sword presentation to Lafayette in New York; a badge commemorating Lafayette’s Farewell Tour, and a Lafayette letter to Thomas Jefferson.
Additional modifications to bicentennial events is possible, so it is a good idea to watch for via calendars on the website and Facebook pages of American Friends of Lafayette and at lafayette200.org.
