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JOHNSTOWN — March 7, 1778: General Marquis de Lafayette of the Continental Army attempted to persuade Haudenosaunee leaders to either join forces or remain neutral during the American Revolutionary War.
The war ultimately turned in the American-aligned Frenchman’s favor. His meeting with the tribal officials at then-Fort Johnstown had mixed results, as two out of six nations joined his side.
And the rest is history.
Flash forward 245 years later, a fresh blue, white and red historical marker stands near the corner of North William and West Main streets in recognition of Lafayette’s local footsteps. It was installed last week.
“I’m not going to speak to the quality of the conference, but I will just say there is a connection to Lafayette and we wanted to memorialize the connection,” said Julien Icher, founder and president of Lafayette Trail, Inc.
Johnstown is the first recipient of the nonprofit’s American Revolutionary War program. The group, buoyed by grant funding from groups such as the William Pomeroy Foundation, has helped erect a bevy of signs marking the nobleman’s journey up and down the East Coast.
The precise whereabouts of Lafayette’s conference with the Haudenosaunees isn’t clear. City Historian Noel Levee, who was approached by Icher last year, eventually determined that Lafayette was “more in the town itself in Johnstown.”
(To note, Johnstown didn’t exist as a town until breaking off from the mega-town of Caughnawaga in 1793 and its urban core wasn’t deemed a separate municipality until ten years later)
It’s not Lafayette’s first dedication in Johnstown. In 2013, officials removed an 80-year-old plaque near the Fort Johnstown Annex proclaiming that George Washington visited and replaced it with tribute to the French nobleman.
“Basically a lot of research has concluded that [Washington] really didn’t make it to Johnstown, but definitely Lafayette was,” Levee said.
Whether or not Lafayette visited twice is up in the air. During an 1824 trip to the United States expensed by Congress, the Frenchman toured a bevy of prominent sites from the warm including Fultonville.
“It’s hard finding documented proof,” said Levee. “There’s different stories that he was in Johnstown and that the ladies of Johnstown threw a big banquet for him.”
The city plans to hold a dedication ceremony for the new plaque at some point within the next two months.
Johnstown’s last historical marker was installed in 2017 to honor local-born suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton outside the Fulton County Courthouse. Stanton, then working for her father’s law firm in the early 1800s, witnessed women lose their property in court to men.
Levee eventually hopes to erect two more respective historical markers recognizing Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh, who was hanged in Johnstown after murdering her husband and local connections to a bloody circus elephant rampage.
Tyler A. McNeil can be reached at 518-395-3047 or [email protected] Follow him on Facebook at Tyler A. McNeil, Daily Gazette or Twitter @TylerAMcNeil.
