An eyewitness Account of General Lafayette’s Visit to Erie
Erie Gazette Erie, PA January 25, 1877
To the Editor of the Gazette:
Sir – Friend G.’s account, in the Saturday’s daily, of Lincoln at Erie, brought to my mind the visit of General Lafayette here, June 3d, 1825, over fifty-one years ago! Erie at that time was a little town of 680 inhabitants; the Navy yard was then still in existence, with its mounted cannon and cannon balls in piles “like pumpkins”, and its picketed fence of cedar posts, with the old bell swung up to ring when required.
General Lafayette, and his son George Washington Lafayette, on their journey from New Orleans to New York passed through Erie and remained several hours. The party arrived at Waterford the evening of the 2d and remained over night at Geo W. Reed’s hotel at that place. A committee from Erie met him on his arrival there, and Judah Colt, Esq., in behalf of the citizens of the county, gave him a cordial welcome to our county, to which the General responded with thanks. The morning of the 3d, the guests and the Erie committee, with several citizens of Waterford, started for Erie, when they were met (at what is now within the bounds of the city corner of Peach and Twenty-sixth streets, then called “Federal Hill”) by the different companies of volunteers of the county, which formed a procession of escort, under General Benjamin Wallace, chief marshal, with several aids. The Erie Guards, Hon. Joseph M. Sterrett in command, were that day next in front of the carriages of the procession, and their marching was admirable. From what is now Twenty-fourth street to Seventeenth street was native woods on the east side of Peach Street, and nearly all woods on the west side, so that the marshals could not keep the floating mass of human beings back into line until they got to the culvert on Ichabod’s run below Seventeenth Street, when they made them fall back into line. The procession passed down Turnpike to State down street to the Public Square, down French to Third, west on Third to State, and down to the foot of State street on the bank of the Bay, where the party got out of the carriages and were received by Captain George Budd, then in command of the naval station at this port, when a traditional salute was fired from the Navy Yard, and the party were then escorted to the house of Captain Daniel Dobbins, corner of State and Third streets, where Dr. John C. Wallace, Chief Burgess, welcomed General Lafayette in behalf of the citizens of the town. The General was then introduced to a great many people. A few old soldiers of the Revolutionary war were there and shed tears like little children to meet their old comrade.
The crowd on Third street was dense opposite the entrance, and Robert Kincaid, janitor, at the door, and Colonel W.E. McNair, marshal’s aid, could hardly keep the living mass back from the door. Among the crowd appeared a seedy looking old man, evidently poor, who, when ordered back, answered with a high voice, “I must see the General; he knows me and wants to see me,” (giving his name.). The General, at once hearing his name, said to Mr. Colt, “Let that man come in; I want to see him; it was he that carried me off the field when I received my wound at the Battle of Brandywine!” He was admitted and both showed much feeling on the occasion.
The General at that time walked with a cane, and showed quite a limp in his walk, the result of his wound at that battle, which made him a cripple for life. He wore a wig, which to the backwoods country boys was quite a curiosity. They all long remembered that they had seen General Lafayette!
Very few then residents of the country but were there to see the General. A grand dinner was spread on the bridge then extending on Second Street from French to State Streets. It was prepared by Mr. John Dickson, who then kept the Steamboat hotel, corner of Second and French Streets. The table extended the whole length of the bridge, nearly two hundred feet long, was well filled, and was covered with an awning of the sails of the British vessels taken by Commodore Perry on September 10, 1813. The dinner on the occasion was one of the best ever got up in Erie and gave great credit to “mine host.” A small cannon stationed on State Street was fired, and burst, but fortunately no one was injured.
One family, living in the Beech Woods, eight miles from Erie, were there, male and female. The mother, who was always full of curiosity, when the crowd pressed up to the west end of the bridge where the dinner was served, called to her husband, in a loud harsh voice,
“Jo, is that him?”
“Where?”
“Why, that white headed old feller?”
“No, replied the husband, that’s old Colt; it’s the one next him, what’s got the bay hair!”
“Do tell,” was her answer!
The party left Erie at three o’clock in a four-horse coach, provided by Colonel Bird, mail contractor, for Portland, and were placed on board the steamboat Superior (then the only one on the Lakes) and taken to Buffalo. The excitement and impression of that day are still fresh in the minds of some who participated in it.
Spelling, punctuation, etc., as in original.
