Butler was a sleepy, mainly agricultural village in 1825. Its few streets were dotted by crude log and brick homes harboring its 500 residents. During its short eight-year history as a borough, few, if any, notable visitors had ever crossed its borders.

So, the excitement must have been tremendous when news reached the little town on the last day of May 1825 that one of the most revered heroes of the American Revolution was coming. The visitor, whose name now graces one of downtown Butler’s most beautiful buildings as well as colleges, towns, parks, and streets across the country, was to arrive the next day after making a stop in Pittsburgh as part of a 14-month, triumphant 24-state tour of America.

Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving major general of the Revolutionary War and “surrogate son” of George Washington, had been invited by Congress and then President James Monroe in January 1824 to help kick off activities for the upcoming 50th anniversary of America’s War for Independence from Great Britain.

Our national leaders felt the story of our fight was being forgotten with the passing of the old soldiers. A visit from America's French “boy general” might help instill the virtues and sacrifices made during that time into the hearts and minds of the younger generation.

Born of an aristocratic, land-owning family in the Auvergne province of France, Lafayette was only 19 years old on June 13,1777, when he arrived from his native land on his personally commissioned boat, the “Victoire.”

Two weeks later, he was appointed by the Continental Congress, after agreeing to serve without pay, to the rank of major general and to serve on the staff of Gen. George Washington.

The Frenchman and the Continental Army’s commander met for the first time in Philadelphia on Aug. 5. Because the 45-year-old Washington had no natural children of his own, the dashing Frenchman's youthful exuberance and his dedication to the American cause of freedom led to the pair forming an immediate bond.

Like other French army officers, Lafayette had been recruited to help the Americans in the Colonies in their struggle against the British, who ruled them.

The marquis was one of the richest men in France, and had been raised to despise England. What’s more, he was eager to seek revenge for the death of his father, also the Marquis de Lafayette, who had been killed fighting for France against the British in 1759 during the Seven Years War.

However, the deceased French colonel’s son had not been recruited by the Americans for his military pedigree or experience as he had never seen combat. Rather, Lafayette’s connections to King Louis XVI were sought, with hopes that the monarchy might provide the rebellious colonies with military help.

During the Revolutionary War, Lafayette served honorably and heroically. He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11,1777, as he led his men on an orderly retreat during the Continental Army’s defeat. Washington sent his own doctors to the young officer’s side, instructing them: “Treat him as though he were my own son!”

Lafayette served on Washington’s staff during the brutal winter at Valley Forge, and in June 1778, following the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse in New Jersey.

Afterward, Lafayette returned to France to win vital support for the fledgling United States following the signing of the Treaty of Alliance, which provided military and financial help to the new American government.

Dressed in his blue Continental Army uniform, Lafayette helped persuade King Louis XVI in 1779 to send the French fleet north from the Caribbean to fight the British, as well as dispatching an additional 6,000 troops crucial to sever King George III’s rule over the colonies.

Back in America in 1780, Lafayette was given senior positions in the Continental Army. In 1781, troops under his command in Virginia blocked forces led by British Gen. Charles Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive siege of Yorktown. That turned the tide to victory in the last major land battle of the American Revolution.

Eventually there would be peace. And independence. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Great Britain formally recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation.

But for Lafayette, peace was short-lived after his return to France. Soon its own revolution, the French Revolution, and the subsequent years of political upheavals convulsed his native land, including the rise and fall of Napoleon.

During those turbulent times, Lafayette and his family were not spared. Eventually he had to flee from his beloved France. He was imprisoned by the Austrians, even serving time in solitary confinement. At times, he borrowed on his American connections — and citizenship — to try to help himself as well as his wife and children.

Fortunately, he survived and lived on. Many years would pass.

The Lafayette who journeyed back to America was a 67-year-old man, accompanied by his son, Georges Washington de Lafayette, and others. His “grand tour” of the United States as our “Nation’s Guest” began on Staten Island on Aug.15, 1824. The returning hero was welcomed in towns all along the 6,000-mile route. From the large cities of Boston and New York to the small towns like Butler, Lafayette’s stops were celebrated with great fanfare, many honors given to him and monuments erected in his honor.

According to the Butler Sentinel and other sources from the time recounting this historic visit, word was received in Butler on Tuesday, the last day of May 1825, that the Frenchman would be traveling from Pittsburgh after a two-day visit and arriving the next afternoon on the regular stagecoach route between Pittsburgh and Erie. Pittsburgh City Light Troop of Cavalry served as escorts.

A meeting was scheduled in Butler’s courthouse for Wednesday morning with a welcoming committee of six being chosen to handle arrangements for this historic visit. Two men were to meet him outside town to accompany his party to the town square; two to arrange accommodations and entertainment; and two to escort him to his next stop at Mercer.

During the day of his arrival, June 1,1825, three arches were constructed to create an appropriate welcome. 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.

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. 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.

After passing under the second welcoming arch, the stagecoach driver pulled on the reins and the horses came to a stop; the coach doors swung open and out stepped the celebrity they had been awaiting.

He was no longer the dashing young man seen in artist John Vanderlyn heroic oil painting depicting him in battle on horseback alongside Washington nearly 50 years ago. Nine-year-old Thomas Mechling of Butler 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.”

Slowly, Lafayette progressed from the stagecoach to a welcoming ceremony being led by former U.S. Sen. Walter Lowrie. Soon after official greetings ended, the distinguished visitor and his son, Georges, 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.

Considered the finest lodging and dining in Butler in its day, the hotel was owned by German-American innkeepers Jacob Mechling and his wife, Mary Magdalene.

Mrs. Mechling was very popular with the children of the 1820s. She would delight each child who came to her door on Christmas with a large mouth-watering piece of her freshly made molasses taffy.

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.”

Among the dishes Mrs. Mechling served was boiled sauerkraut. Lafayette, it was reported, “ate freely of this.”

The meal was served on the hotel’s finest china, and Butlerites of older generations will remember that samples of the Mechling china were displayed in the lobby of the old Butler County National Bank (later Mellon Bank’s Butler office) in what is today’s Lafayette Building. That landmark reflects the Beaux-Arts architectural style, originating in France, a Franco-American connection by which Lafayette would likely be flattered.

After concluding his meal, “The Nation’s Guest” and the smell of sauerkraut promenaded out the front door of the hotel to greet a large, admiring crowd. He walked among the wide-eyed and shook hands with not fewer than 400, including speaking to many men who had fought during the Revolution and the Battle of Brandywine. He recognized some of their faces as the old soldiers stood in review, conversing in detail about the events of the battle, which had nearly taken his life.

The Marquis de Lafayette’s sojourn in Butler was to end after only a few hours. By 4 p.m. it was time for him to retake his stagecoach seat and continue his tour of the nation he helped create.

His party was about to journey northward seven hours to the town named for fellow Revolutionary War general and friend Hugh Mercer. 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 14-month, 6,000-mile tour came to an end on Sept. 6, 1825, in Washington, D.C., with a banquet.

At the White House, newly elected President John Quincy Adams celebrated Lafayette’s 68th birthday. On Sept. 7, Adams and the guest of honor exchanged farewell speeches at the entrance to what was then often called the Executive Mansion.

After a tearful embrace between Lafayette and Adams, the former major general and his companions walked up the gangplank of the steamboat “Mount Vernon” on route to the mouth of the Potomac River.

While going downriver, the steamboat passed its eponymous namesake: the home of the Washington who had been a father figure not only to Lafayette but also to an entire nation.

The entourage transferred to the frigate “USS Brandywine,” which carried them back to France accompanied on the voyage by 24 young naval officers, one from each state.

Lafayette, who championed the virtues of American ideals of freedom in France throughout his life following the American Revolution, died in Paris of pneumonia at the age 76 on May 20, 1834.

Lafayette was interred in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, where his wife, Adrienne de Lafayette, also is buried.

This cemetery is where hundreds of victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution were dumped into mass graves, including Adrienne’s mother, grandmother and sister. Although they are not buried in Picpus, King Louis XVI, to whom Lafayette pleaded the case for helping the American colonies’ in their quest for independence, was also a victim of the guillotine during the French Revolution, as was his wife, Marie Antoinette.

About his last resting place, Lafayette left a strange request: He desired to be buried in both American and French soil.

During his visit to America in the 1820s, he had collected soil from each state along the route. Sadly, toward the end and only three weeks before his visit to Butler, the steamship “Mechanic,” carrying Lafayette, sank in the Ohio River east of Louisville, Ky. Although all passengers made it safely to shore, the soil collected for his grave did not, becoming part of the river’s muddy water.

The next best thing, Lafayette thought, would be soil from Bunker Hill, an upcoming stop on his tour. Honoring his father’s wish and upon looking down at his father’s casket, Georges Washington Lafayette spread the Massachusetts dirt from Bunker Hill over the remains.

Appropriately, an American flag, courtesy of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has waved over Lafayette’s grave since the 1850s.

On July 4, 1917, during World War I, American troops in France stopped at Picpus Cemetery to pay homage to Lafayette there. That’s where Col. Charles Stanton uttered the famous words: “Lafayette, we are here.”

In 2002, this iconic French-American hero, without whose help we may not have won our independence, was one of only eight foreigners ever to be granted the title “Honorary Citizen of the United States.”

It’s a long way from the River Seine in Paris to the Connoquenessing Creek in Butler, but one bridge between the two places has remained throughout the centuries: A late-spring day in 1825 when the Marquis de Lafayette, living history, was here, walking the streets and waving at the crowds in our town.

Bill May is a local historian, speaker and tour guide.