Starting in the summer of 1824, newspaper readers across the still young United States were gripped by nostalgia.

Less than half a century earlier, names that continue to echo down through history had fought for the formation of a new nation — and they didn’t fight alone.

Nearly a quarter million soldiers fought in the Continental Army during the course of the war, fighting in battles large and small.

By 1825, those men were getting older. Those who’d been in their late teens and early 20s during the 1770s and 80s were into their 60s, but there were still large numbers scattered throughout the 24 states that then made up the United States.

Even some of the true luminaries of the Revolution, men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who were in their 80s in 1824, were still alive.

And so, when one of the true heroes of the War, a foreigner who had helped fight the U.S. fight for freedom, returned for a visit, the nation was overjoyed.

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, better known to Americans simply as Lafayette, was born in 1757 to an aristocratic French family. In May 1771, Lafayette, not yet 14 years old and already an orphan with an eye-watering income from the lands he’d inherited, was commissioned an officer in the French military.

Five years later, in 1776, American Silas Deane was sent to France to secretly negotiate for military support in the form of trained officers and arms.

When Lafayette heard, he demanded to be included, and Deane commissioned him a major-general at the age of 19.

From the very beginning, the signs for Lafayette were not good. After initially agreeing to support the Americans, the French king, Louis XVI, backed down after threats from the British.

And even though Lafayette was still committed to going, the perpetually cash-strapped American government didn’t have the money to get him on a ship.

At age 19, Lafayette didn’t have much battlefield experience, but he had the best training and huge reserves of wealth, so he bought and outfitted the ship Victoire for the voyage.

By July 1777, Lafayette had arrived in the New World. One of the first men he met was George Washington, commander in chief of the Continental Army, and the two bonded nearly instantly.

By September, Lafayette saw action for the first time in the Battle of Brandywine. There, while trying to help rally troops who were being overrun, he was shot in the leg. Despite the wound he helped to organize an orderly withdrawal, saving lives and helping to cement his reputation for gallantry and courage.

After spending the winter in Valley Forge with Washington and his troops, Lafayette would head back to France and return in 1780, this time with 6,000 French troops. He was instrumental in the American victory at the Siege of Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.

He would again return to France, this time to help negotiate an end to the war, which finally happened with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Lafayette’s life got no less eventful after his return to France. He was deeply involved in the early stages of the French Revolution, but would fall out of favor with the radicals and in 1792, while attempting to flee France, he was captured by the Austrians, who were opposed to the French Revolution, and held prisoner for five years. He would eventually be freed and be able to return to France, though many of his properties had been confiscated or sold out from under him.

Lafayette would limit his involvement in politics for much of the rest of his life, though he never stopped pushing for a democratic France, always through constitutional change rather than violence.

Lafayette’s love of America never dimmed, but despite multiple efforts, he hadn’t returned in the decades since the Revolutionary War. That would change in 1824.

In 1824, U.S. President James Monroe invited Lafayette to visit America as part of the preparation for the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which would be July 4, 1826.

He’d arrive in New York City in August 1824 and would tour New England, meeting with former President John Adams, then New York, then Philadelphia, onto Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and eventually, Monticello in Virginia, where he would spend time with former President Thomas Jefferson. After spending the winter in D.C., Lafayette began a tour of the Southern and Western states starting in February 1825.

He’d visit state after state, city after city, greeting crowds and giving speeches as he went.

He stopped in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio between late February and late May, before returning to Pennsylvania.

He visited Braddock, the site of a major battle during the French and Indian War that had helped raised Washington to prominence, then he headed toward the city.

He processed along Penn Avenue to Hand Street (now Ninth Street), then to Liberty Avenue, to Fourth Avenue, then to Market Street, then to Water Street (Now Fort Pitt Boulevard), then to Wood Street and finally to Lafayette’s hotel.

He was greeted all along the route by cheering crowds and, the next morning, by the city’s school children, who were lined up outside his hotel.

The Pittsburgh Gazette also recorded a touching moment from Lafayette’s visit.

“Perhaps the most interesting incident attending the General’s visit to our city was the introduction to him, at Darlington’s Hotel, of the revolutionary veterans who, which Captain Peterson, had occupied the three carriages next to his during the procession,” a Gazette account reads.

“Their names are Alexander Gray, Gabreath Wilson, Richard Sparrow, Thomas Vaughan, David Morse, James Keep, John Warner, Abraham Boeher, Thomas Rowe, Elijah Clayton and John Barnwell. Old Alexander Gray and Galbreath Wilson seemed to grow young again. The latter asked the General if he remembered the young man who assisted him over the fence, immediately after he had received the wound in his leg at the battle of Brandywine, which caused his lameness? The General instantly recognized in Wilson the gallant young soldier who had performed that service, and a very cordial embrace followed.”

Stories like that were published in papers across the nation, as again and again, Lafayette was introduced to old comrades in arms.

Historian Bill May wrote extensively about Lafayette’s short stop in Butler on June 1, 1825, in the January 2023 edition of the Butler Eagle.

“During the day of his arrival, June 1,1825, three arches were constructed to create an appropriate welcome,” May wrote. “The first arch was built at today’s corner of South Main and Wayne streets, the second spanning over South Main and Diamond streets, and the third crossing the corner of Cunningham and South Main. Each was beautiful and patriotic, featuring evergreen and laurel with a 24-star American flag waving in the afternoon breeze from the top. Suspended from the arch’s center was a tablet proclaiming, “Welcome Lafayette.” Each tablet was gently surrounded by a wreath of flowers and fresh roses.”

May gave an overview of the scene, based on witness reports.

“Awestruck men and boys rode horses or walked out to the Old Plank Road to help escort the famous visitor into town for his early-afternoon arrival,” May wrote.” The excited men, women, and children back in Butler lined the dirt road from the north side of the Connoquenessing Creek bridge to Diamond Street to catch a glimpse of the French nobleman so that one day they would be able to tell their grandchildren. As Lafayette’s horse-drawn stagecoach gingerly passed through the center of the crowd and up the hill to the town square, the crowd turned and walked behind him.”

The visit of this hero of two revolutions brought a huge crowd to the tiny village of Butler that day, and it would be something people who saw it would remember for their entire lives.

May wrote that then 9-year-old Thomas Mechling of Butler would described him in a 1894 Butler Citizen interview as “stout, round-faced man who walked with a limp from the wound he received during the Battle of Brandywine.”

He progressed through town with the crowd behind him.

“Slowly, Lafayette progressed from the stagecoach to a welcoming ceremony being led by former U.S. Sen. Walter Lowrie.” May wrote. “Soon after official greetings ended, the distinguished visitor and his son, Georges Washington de Lafayette, walked over to the front door of the red-brick Mechling House or Mansion House as it was also called. This hotel was in the center section of West Diamond Street along the block between South Main and Jackson Streets.”

Lafayette would dine at the hotel, which was owned by Jacob Mechling and his wife, Mary.

May explained that the couple’s son, Thomas, was the last person alive to have shaken the hand of Lafayette in Butler when he died, in 1904.

“He described Lafayette’s attire in the Butler Citizen interview as ‘wearing a blue coat with white vest and buff colored nankeen pants,’” May wrote.

It was a short visit, as most of the stops on Lafayette’s long tour would be.

“His party was about to journey northward seven hours to the town named for fellow Revolutionary War general and friend Hugh Mercer,” May wrote. “Escorted by two members of Butler’s welcoming committee, he bade Butler an affectionate adieu, exclaiming, ‘Farewell, my friends. You will not see me again.’

“The horses pulling the stagecoach were given the whip, and the sound of wooden-spoked wheels could be heard pulling Lafayette and entourage under the third arch of evergreen and laurel. The crowds watched as they slowly faded into the distance.”

Lafayette’s journey would take him along the route of the still-in-progress Erie Canal, into New York and back into New England before a final leg down the Eastern seaboard, including stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore, before arriving in Washington, D.C. in September.

Lafayette would meet John Quincy Adams, who’d been elected president and inaugurated during his visit, and on his 68th birthday, Sept. 6, 1825, would address a joint session of Congress and dine with Adams at the White House. The next day he would board a ship that would return him to France. He’d live another nine years, dying in May 1834, one of the last surviving heroes of the Revolutionary War.