Marietta will be participating in Lafayette 200, the nationwide commemoration of The Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to the United States in 1824-25, throughout May.

General Lafayette briefly visited Marietta on May 23, 1825, and local events are planned not only for that day, but for the entire month, said Erin Augenstein, executive director of the Campus Martius and Ohio River museums in Marietta.

President James Monroe invited Lafayette to return to the United States as the country approached its 50th year. What was intended to be a visit of a few months turned into a year-long tour. From August 1824 through September 1825, The Guest of the Nation visited all 24 U.S. states, viewed Niagara Falls and traveled the Erie Canal, laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, witnessed the contentious 1824 election, and celebrated his 68th birthday at the White House with President John Quincy Adams before setting sail back to France, with a bit of soil from the ground at Bunker Hill that he saved to one day cover his grave.

Augenstein, who is chairing the Marietta Committee, said “As we approach the 250th birthday of the United States, it has been wonderful to consider our nation’s Revolution through the eyes of General Lafayette. Our country and our local community have had close ties with France since the mid-1700’s. Celebrating that relationship helps us all to more deeply understand how our history can affect our future.”

The goal of the Bicentennial events is to Celebrate, Commemorate, and Educate, including an emphasis on Human Rights, the Franco-American Alliance, and the importance of linking the past to the present, she said.

The schedule of local events will include:

*Vive Lafayette!, Monday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday,12-5 p.m. at the Campus Martius Museum.

The exhibit is already underway. Museum admission is $10 adults, $5 youth and veterans and free for Blue Star Families, Ohio History Connection members and Friends of the Museums members.

Campus Martius Museum has partnered with the American Friends of Lafayette on Lafayette 200. This temporary exhibit is included in regular admission.

*Discovering History: Lafayette and Human Rights at noon Friday. May 2, at Campus Martius. The event is free and open to the public and will feature a program by Alan Hoffman, president of The American Friends of Lafayette.

Lafayette’s first foray into human rights work was in the American Revolution which he saw as a cause important to all mankind. He wrote this as he sailed to America months prior to his 20th birthday: “The welfare of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she will become the respectable and safe asylum of virtue, integrity, tolerance, equality and peaceful liberty.” He continued to promote natural rights – what he called “the Rights of Man and the Citizen” in his 1789 declaration in France – through his support for revolutions in Europe and South America.

*Lafayette’s Post-Civil War Symbolic Role in Franco-America Relations, presented by Hoffman at 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 2, at the Betsey Mills Club. The event is free and open to the public. Historical tours of the club will follow, beginning at 6:30 p.m., which will also be free and open to the public.

*The Lafayette Trail: Historic Marker Dedication at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Ohio River Levee next to the Lafayette Hotel in downtown Marietta.

The marker is part of the Lafayette Trail. The event is free and open to the public.

*”A Buckeye Story of American Republicanism narrated by a French Marquis” will be 2 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Betsey Mills Club.

Julien Icher, with The Lafayette Trail, will share the significance of Lafayette’s 1824-25 visit, and its impact on Ohio of yesterday and today. A small reception will follow.

*The Lafayette Ball will be 6-9 p.m. Friday, May 23, at The Vault, at Second and Putnam streets.

Tickets are $75 with a limit of 100 and will be available from Campus Martius Museum. The event will honor the Nation’s Guest. As a part of the Lafayette 200 commemoration, it will celebrate the bicentennial visit of Lafayette with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and dancing.