HCR 130

R-154  Page 1 of 1
2025
No. R-154. House concurrent resolution commemorating the bicentennial of the
1824–1825 Farewell American tour of the Marquis de Lafayette.
                                        (H.C.R.130)
   Offered by Representative Casey of Montpelier
   Whereas, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, best known
as the Marquis de Lafayette, was a French aristocrat who, audaciously, at 19 years of age,
set sail for America and amazingly persuaded Congress to commission him as a major
general in the Continental Army, and
    Whereas, Lafayette fought bravely in the Battles of Brandywine, where he was
wounded, and Rhode Island, before returning to France to lobby the French government
to increase support for the American cause, and
   Whereas, upon his return to the United States, Lafayette, leading a contingent of
American troops, blocked British General Lord Cornwallis’s early action during the
decisive Battle of Yorktown, and
   Whereas, Lafayette long aspired someday to return to the nation whose independence
he helped secure, and in 1824, President James Monroe and Congress invited Lafayette to
tour the country, in celebration of the Revolutionary War’s 50th anniversary, which
became a 24-state sojourn beginning in New York on August 15, 1824 and concluding in
Burlington on June 29, 1825, and
   Whereas, Lafayette arrived in Vermont on June 28, 1825, was welcomed at an early
morning ceremony in Windsor, journeyed through Hartland to an event in Woodstock,
traveled via East Barnard on his way to Royalton, where more official greetings awaited,
and continued through Tunbridge to Barre, from where a more elaborate entourage
accompanied him to Montpelier, and from the first State House’s balcony he observed a
military procession, delivered a speech in the Assembly’s chamber, and attended a grand
banquet in his honor, and a historic marker now commemorates Lafayette’s Montpelier
visit, and
   Whereas, on June 29, 1825, Lafayette’s American tour, after passing through
Williston, concluded in Burlington, where the festivities consisted of large receptions,
laying the cornerstone of the University of Vermont’s Old Mill building, greetings from
Governor Van Ness, and the delivery of the English-fluent Frenchman’s carefully written
farewell America speech of appreciation and reflection, and
   Whereas, the American Friends of Lafayette has organized a bicentennial recreation of
the 19th-century tour, following the original route to the day, including all the Vermont
stops on June 28–29, 2025, now therefore be it
   Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives:
   That the General Assembly commemorates the bicentennial of the 1824–1825
Farewell American tour of the Marquis de Lafayette, and be it further
   Resolved: That the Secretary of State be directed to send a copy of this resolution to
the American Friends of Lafayette.
                                                                            VT LEG #383697 v.1