JSA
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RE: It's a Festivus Miracle
(12-10-2017 04:02 AM)Almadenmike Wrote: (12-09-2017 03:23 PM)JSA Wrote: Sam Houston met Lafayette during Lafayette's visit the US in 1823 and received a hair locket from him. Lafayette warned Houston that the European crowns were hoping for the collapse of democracy in the US.
Although the "Sam Houston Project" mentions this locket and the 1823 date, Lafayette's famous return visit to America actually occurred in 1824-5. The congressional invitation was passed in January 1824. Houston was a U.S. Rep. from Tennessee at that time. Perhaps he met Lafayette in Washington (December 1824) or in Nashville (hosted by Houston's mentor Andrew Jackson) in May 1825.
There is no mention of the meeting in this 1854 biography of Lafayette or the two-volume journal of the trip, published in 1829. (Links to Vol. 1 / Vol. 2)
Channel 8 reruns the Sam Houston documentary based on the Sam Houston Project. A professor discusses the visit, but I can't find a video. Actually, I had thought Lafayette's visit was in 1826 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Declaration.
The documentary also mentions that he had a chance meeting with Alexis de Tocqueville on a riverboat trip. There's speculation on whether he ever visited with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
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12-10-2017 11:51 AM |
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I45owl
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RE: It's a Festivus Miracle
(12-08-2017 10:30 PM)georgewebb Wrote: (12-08-2017 12:46 PM)I45owl Wrote: TDIL that Jean Lafitte was not the same person as Lafayette. I never really thought much about the two at the same time, but I thought it was just an "alternate" pronunciation... I heard about Lafitte when I was pretty young, and Lafayette much later in adulthood, but somehow conflated the two and thought Lafayette's main career was as a ship captain.
Ack!
(As a New Orleanian and history buff, I learned about both the Marquis de Lafayette and the buccaneer Jean Lafitte as a youngster. Such completely different characters! Lafayette was a national hero with places named after him all over the U.S., while Lafitte was very much a regional hero, and to a large extent a creature of legend. Interestingly, an American flag flies perpetually over Lafayette's grave in Paris.)
Sadly, my interest in Lafitte was probably stoked by one or two trips to Lafitte's restaurant in Downtown Denver as a child. To my recollection, that was regarded as the best restaurant in the city at that time...
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12-11-2017 05:03 PM |
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