French hero greeted like ‘rock star’ in Beaufort 200 years ago. Cannon blast to mark return
In March of 1825, Marquise de Lafayette arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina via the Beaufort River on a steamboat with his son, George Washington Lafayette, and his dog, a brown and white King Charles spaniel.
At the time, Lafayette, a French aristocrat, may have been the most famous man in America.
Fifty years prior, as a 19-year-old, Lafayette, motivated by the ideals of the 13 colonies that broke free from the British crown, volunteered for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He became a war hero and a major general and a friend of the most famous American of all, Gen. George Washington. Later, in 1779, he returned to France where he pushed for French support for the American cause and democracy in his own land, earning him the title, “hero of two worlds.” Lafayette would name his son after his close friend Washington who went on to become the president.
No wonder Lafayette was greeted with a cannon blast and 13-gun salute when he arrived in Beaufort.
“He was absolutely the rock star at the time,” says Lise Sundrla of the Historic Beaufort Foundation.
Lafayette will make a triumphant return to Beaufort on Tuesday in a recreation of his ballyhooed stop in the city on March 18, 1825. The public is being invited to witness the spectacle at the city’s Waterfront Park in which Lafayette will arrive to the sounds of cannon and musket fire once again after his boat reaches the city’s day dock. Then he’ll parade through downtown Beaufort before speaking to the crowd from one of its most historic buildings, just as he did 200 years ago, when the state’s second-oldest city was just a mere 114 years old.
The Lafayette Returns event is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday at Waterfront Park but his arrival will come at 10 a.m. sharp.
Although it’s never been confirmed, local lore has it that Lafayette spoke to the gathered crowd from the portico of the John Mark Verdier House, which still stands on Bay Street. Today, the 221-year-old Verdier House is the home of the Historic Beaufort Foundation. It’s also known locally as the Lafayette Building.
Sundrla says the recreation will commemorate Lafayette’s lofty ideals.
“He believed in a vision of liberty, freedom, equality,” she said. “He was an abolitionist. He was essentially a supporter of women’s equality as well.”
Mark Schneider will play Lafayette during the recreation. In history circles, he’s somewhat of a rock star himself. The nationally-known historical interpreter and Lafayette expert is from Colonial Williamsburg, Va.
Schneider, along with four other Lafayette interpreters, has been traveling the country under the sponsorship of the American Friends of Lafayette in celebration of the bicentennial of Lafayette’s 13-month “Farewell Tour of the Nation,” which began in 1824 on Staten Island, N.Y. and ended Sept. 6, 1825 in Washington where where he celebrated his 68th birthday at a White House banquet.
“Mark is the biggest deal we have,” Charles Schwam, executive director of the American Friends of Lafayette national organization, says of Schneider.
The Beaufort stop on March 18, 1825 was one of 100 that Lafayette made at towns in 24 states that existed in the budding nation at that time. President James Madison, Lafayette’s friend, asked him to return to the United States to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Revolutionary War and to boost patriotism, Sundrla said. At the time, he was the last living major general from Washington’s staff.
Besides the 1825 visit to Beaufort on March 18, Lafayette’s other South Carolina stops were at Cheraw, Camden, Columbia, Izzard’s Plantation north of Charleston, Charleston, Edisto and North Augusta.
He arrived in Beaufort on a steamboat. He was 67 years old.
On Tuesday, Lafayette, played by Schneider, will arrive to a 13-gun salute at the Beaufort day dock on a restored 1936 motorized wooden yacht instead of a steamboat but everything else will be about the same right down to his Revolutionary War garb and the colors of his dog.
Some 500 students from across Beaufort County are being bused to the event which also is open to the general public.
State and local dignitaries and even members of the French consulate have been invited. Beaufort police are preparing for a crowd of at least 1,000, Sundrla said.
“What started as a small commemoration has turned into a huge event,” Sundrla said.
Once again, Lafayette will speak off the portico at the Verier House. He’ll be carried in a white horse-drawn carriage in a procession down Bay Street that will proceed through a “triumphal arch” in front of the Verdier House.
Holy Trinity Classical Christian School students will portray the Beaufort Voluntary Artillery, which flanked the Lafayette procession. The voluntary artillery formed in 1776.
The boat carrying Lafayette will travel under the Woods Memorial Bridge and a cannon brought in by the Sons of the American Revolution will go off when it touches the day dock.
The 13-gun salute from black-powder muskets will come later.
“It will be the sound that everybody will feel and hear and be able to experience,” Sundrla says.
Larry Rowland, professor emeritus of history at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and co-author of the three-volume history of Beaufort County, said Lafayette’s arrival came at a time when he may have been the most famous celebrity in America. He also was considered the “hero of two worlds” for helping the Americans secure independence and his support for democracy in France.
The year 1825 was also the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America and cotton was one of its earliest essential products, Rowland said.
“These were heady economic times for the Sea Islands and Beaufortonians were reveling not only in their Independence but also in their new prosperity,” Rowland said. “The steam engine and the modern steamboat, the H.W.Schultz, that brought Lafayette to Beaufort were symbols of the new technology and America’s new prosperity.”
This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 12:33 PM.
