The Lafayette Room

Drawing Room

Here, on 14 December 1824, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquise de Lafayette (pictured on wall) paused in his triumphal tour as guest of the United States to pay a formal call on the widow of his comrade-in-arms, Henry Lee. Lafayette was the last surviving Major General of the Revolution. Outside the house, as elsewhere, a throng waited to pay tribute to him as one the nation's founders and champion of liberty everywhere. On the wall opposite was a portrait of Lucy Carter Fitzhugh.

Twenty years earlier, on 7 July 1804, this room had been the scene of the wedding of Molly Fitzhugh and George Washington Parke Custis. Custis was the grandson of Martha Washington. Upon his father's death, he went to live at Mount Vernon. He was a member of the first first family when President Washington took office. He built Arlington overlooking the capital as a tribute to Washington. There, in 1831, the Custis' daughter, Mary Ann, became Mrs. Robert E. Lee.

Many thanks to the Boyhood Home staff and docents for this and the other tour photographs.