 Miscellaneous 17
Lafayette Badge
Silk with Black Image, Printed in Baltimore, Maryland
1824
Gift of Mr. Ellicott
Worthington, 1960
| In 1824, the French General Lafayette embarked on a
massive tour across America. Among
his stops was Maryland’s capital city where a formal committee of
well-wishers welcomed the General with open arms.
At the forefront of that committee was Jeremiah Townley Chase,
a mayor of Annapolis, a respected Judge, and a former renter of the office
wing in the Hammond-Harwood House. Along
with other notable Annapolis residents, the Honorable Judge Chase was
"invited to assemble in the Senate Chamber on Friday morning the 17th
instant [1824], as soon as the approach of General La Fayette to the City
shall be announced. Each
Member is requested to furnish himself with a La Fayette Badge.” |
 In December of 1824, a series of articles appeared in
the Maryland Gazette recounting the grand events of that patriotic
day.
"[A] procession having passed
through West-street, and down Church-street, moved up Francis-street, to
the eastern gate of the state-house, where the General alighted from his
carriage, and was conducted to the state-house.
Upon entering the hall of which, he was greeted by about 30 little
girls, each about 12 years of age, formed a semi-circle, and all dressed
in white, with wreaths of evergreen entwined around their heads, and
holding in their hands banners, with the following inscriptions,
‘Lafayette—the friend of our fathers, will always be welcome to the
hearts of their children…’ ”
It was at this gay occasion that the elderly but
still eloquent Chase gave the following address:
"General Lafayette, the
citizens of Annapolis, ardently…demonstrate the feelings of their hearts
on this happy occasion…They rejoice to see y you receiving the
congratulations of a free people; whose
hearts from one end of the continent to the other, are filled with the
most lively gratitude, for the great, the important services rendered by
you in the Revolutionary War. To
you, illustrious chief they are indebted for that aid you afforded…as
the devoted friend of liberty, and your timely aid in her cause, will long
be remembered by Americans. They are deeply engraven, indelibly impressed, on their
hearts, and will be transmitted from father to son, from generation to
generation, until America shall be lost and swallowed up in the never
ceasing flood of time."
|
