Lafayette’s Nations Guest Tour

You will discover what is happening on the amazing tour recreating Lafayette’s “Guest of the Nation” Tour. This program describes the original 1824-25 celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the American Revolution. Lafayette triumphantly returned to bid the country he loved, “Farewell.” At the time, he was 67 and the last surviving major general of the American Revolution. Both Congress and President James Monroe invited Lafayette hoping his visit might reignite patriotic fervor in a politically divided America. From August 15, 1824 to September 9, 1825, Lafayette journeyed more than 6,000 miles by carriage, stagecoach, canal barge, and steamboat, traveling to all of the then existing 24 states as well as “Washington City.” Everywhere he went, Lafayette was met with adoration and accolades as an American hero.

This program mentions a few of the different locations that Lafayette visited with its primary focus on New Orleans. There is an audience participation section where we will get to select short stories related to Lafayette’s tour.

Our Speaker Denise Bennett is serving as Co-Chair of the American Friends of Lafayette’s Bicentennial planning committee for New Orleans which will occur on April 9-13, 2025. She has been involved in planning every aspect of the five- day long commemoration.

Denise Bennett enjoys doing historical first-person interpretations. She invests months of research into every component of the historical person she portrays. Currently, Denise takes on eight persona’s, one for the each of the four centuries of American history. She had the honor of performing Adrienne de Lafayette at the NSDAR Continental Congress and at the Michigan State DAR Conference.

Denise Bennet is a second and third generation American, who despite her especially recent immigrants, can trace her lineage in America back to the American Revolution and to the third ship that arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1623.

After extensive research for each of their complex applications, she has qualified for her membership in ten lineage societies. She actually had one of the most international applications. In her first three generations she had proof documents which required translations from German, Spanish, and old Persian.

Denise currently serves as the President of the Daughters of the War of 1812 chapter, President of the New England Women Colony, and Second Vice Regent for the Lady Washington chapter, NSDAR.

She is deeply involved in of the Louisiana Bicentennial Committee of the American Friends of Lafayette. Denise is co-chair of the commemoration of General Lafayette’s Farewell tour which took place in 1824-1825. She is working on every aspect of the five-day New Orleans and Baton Rouge celebration in April 2025.