Lafayette, Bethlehem, Northampton County

May is here, and it's actually starting to look like it where I live! Several of my neighbors have planted fields of canola, and it's a massive lift to the spirits to drive to the grocery store past fields of beautiful yellow flowers, stretching for acres. I'm so grateful to the farmers who decided to put in that crop.

I didn't know what to write for today's post. I'm actually starting to run out of my backlog of 'saved' subjects; I've done all of the markers I've collected for several counties. (That's not to say that those counties are done, just that I need more material from them.) My younger sister lives with us, and I remarked that today I needed to do a blog post. She wanted to know if I've written about bread yet, which as my longtime readers know, I have not. I've made bread - yesterday was my first attempt at homemade bread and it went very well; I have dubbed it "existential bread" because we joke that people are baking to stave off the sensations of existential dread. I'm probably not as funny as I think I am.

Anyway, I gave her two possible topics for today's post and she picked the one you're about to read. So it's partly because of Liza that we're learning about the Marquis de Lafayette.

Pennsylvania actually has three markers dedicated to Lafayette. This is the one on Main Street in Bethlehem; the others are in Montgomery County and Chester County, and will be addressed in later posts. They're about different incidents in his life.

The marker is situated in front of
534 Main Street, Bethlehem.

First of all, please do not ask me to pronounce his full name. My French is not the best in the first place, and this is a mouthful. "Marquis de Lafayette" (or de La Fayette) was his title. His name was Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier; I do know that he went by Gilbert with his friends, and that it was pronounced "Gil-bear," and the reason I know this is because he was a recurring character on the historical cartoon Liberty's Kids. Most of what I knew about him before writing this blog post actually comes from that show. Despite growing up in the Lehigh Valley and his historical marker being here and there being a nearby college named for the guy, I really don't remember ever learning much about him in school.

Lafayette and I share the same birthday, which took me by surprise. He was born on September 6, 1757, in the French province of Auvergne (known today as Haute-Loire). He came from one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France at the time, with a number of his ancestors performing historic feats of valor. He was a small boy when his father died and he inherited the title of Marquis de Lafayette; at around age 13 he became a commissioned officer in the Musketeers (yes, those Musketeers), though his duties were largely ceremonial. At the age of 14 he was betrothed to Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, daughter of the Duc d'Ayen, though at her mother's insistence the betrothal was a lengthy one. They fell in love, however, and the marriage was by all accounts very happy.

Okay, that's all interesting, but it doesn't relate to today's marker.

It's not confirmed why, exactly, young Lafayette decided to join the brewing revolution in what is now the United States. We do know that after his marriage, at his father-in-law's request, he was transferred from the Musketeers to the Noailles Dragoons, and that he was participating in his unit's annual training in 1775 when he met the Marquis de Ruffec. They discussed the subject over dinner. One theory suggests that Lafayette was inspired to join the rebels because he had a grudge against the British - his father had died in battle against them, and he wanted to knock them down a few pegs by helping to defeat them. Whatever the case, in September 1775 he turned 18, went to Paris, and became a captain in the Dragoons. The following year, the French monarch Louis XVI and his foreign minister started providing arms and officers to the American rebels. (You might remember my mentioning this fact in another post; in return for Louis making these contributions, Pennsylvania named Dauphin County in honor of his son.) Lafayette insisted on being among them. His efforts to join were delayed, because his father-in-law was also his superior officer and he deeply disapproved of what Lafayette was planning.

Lafayette had to buy his own ship in order to join, because the Continental Congress couldn't afford to transport him themselves, so he bought the Victoire and began preparing her for the journey. His family's reaction dismayed him, however, and further delayed his departure. He did finally leave, however, in March of 1777, and landed in South Carolina in June after two months of seasickness and boredom.

I'm trying to condense this, because as fascinating as I find the reading, it's not getting us close to the marker's subject with any great speed. Lafayette was pretty fluent in English by the time he met General George Washington in August 1777. They became almost instant friends, in part due to the fact that they were both Freemasons. On September 11, Lafayette participated in his first battle alongside his new friends, the Battle of Brandywine. Under Brigadier Thomas Conway, Lafayette and the Third Pennsylvania Brigade attempted to face the superior British and Hessian forces. It didn't go very well for Lafayette, who was shot in the leg, but he managed to rally the troops and allow for a more orderly retreat before he received treatment. The British succeeded in taking Philadelphia that month, but Washington praised the "bravery and military ardour" of his young friend. There's an apocryphal story that Washington told the doctor to "treat this man as if he were my son."

Donegal Square, the Irish store now situated
where the Beckel house once stood

Whether that's true or not, it's definitely true that the injured Lafayette was sent to recover in Bethlehem, in the Moravian community, with which Washington and a number of the other well-known Revolutionary figures were very familiar. (You might remember that from our visit to the Sun Inn.) He was housed in the home, as the marker says, of George Frederick Beckel. Originally he was taken to the Sun Inn, but it was noisy and a bit confusing to the patient, because of the large numbers of soldiers always coming and going. He couldn't really get any rest and quiet. So he was taken instead to the Beckel home, situated at what is today 534 Main Street.

As of this writing, the site is occupied by Donegal Square and McCarthy's Red Stag Pub, an Irish store and restaurant - one of my absolute favorite places to eat in the whole of Bethlehem. Tell them I sent you to try the potato and leek soup and the brown bread with butter.

What we know about George Frederick Beckel is, well, not much. He was born in 1773, the youngest son of Frederick Beckel, and part of the Moravian community. His chief occupation was as a stocking weaver - and yes, that was exactly what it sounds like, someone who manufactured stockings. He also played the oboe in the local orchestra, which eventually evolved into the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (the subject of another future post). At the time he hosted his illustrious French guest, he superintended the community farm; this was the source of much of the food supply for the Moravians, and by all accounts it was a very successful venture. George was married to A. M. Kindig and had two sons, Charles and Lewis, and at least one daughter, Liesel. He died in 1824 and is buried in the Moravian cemetery.

As for Lafayette, once he recovered, he bade the Moravians a friendly farewell and returned to the battlefield. He participated in a number of significant battles and stayed in Washington's Valley Forge encampment during the winter of 1777-78. The French signed treaties acknowledging American independence in 1778 and officially joined the war. In 1779, he was permitted to return to France, where he received both a hero's welcome and a scolding for disobeying the King, and Benjamin Franklin's grandson presented him with a gold-encrusted sword as a gift from the Continental Congress. He reunited with his wife, who ended 1779 by presenting him with a son, whom they named Georges Washington Lafayette in honor of his friend the general. He returned to America in 1780 and continued to fight in the war, but I'll defer the rest of his story for the future blog posts. This one's already gone on pretty long. Stay tuned for more Marquis when I find his other markers!

Update 3/1/2022: Almost two years after I posted this, the Historic Bethlehem Museums and Sites organization published a video about Lafayette's time recuperating in the Beckel home. The chair he used, which he is believed to have brought with him, is in their artifacts collection. Check out the video in the links below!

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Sources and Further Reading:

Weil, Lorna. "Historic site to be marked in Bethlehem." Allentown, Pennsylvania Morning Call, May 13, 1987.

Chaffin, Tom. Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship That Helped Forge Two Nations. St. Martin's Press, 2019.

Clary, David. Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution. Bantam Dell, New York, 2007.

Lane, Jason. General and Madame de Lafayette: Partners in Liberty's Cause in the American and French Revolutions. Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003.

Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites. "Collections and Reflections: Marquis de Lafayette's Chair." YouTube video, February 22, 2022.

Lafayette at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.