October 10, 2023
We all enjoy the really big events that fall under the categories of jubilees, centennials, and bicentennials. Our expectations are high beforehand as nations, cities and towns, and organizations plan on pulling out all the bells and whistles and appeal to our deepest emotions. Here in America in 1976, everyone put on a spectacular show. The Yorktown Victory festivities five years later were not as grand, but they were certainly memorable for historians and allies. Each celebration in its own way had much to offer to different generations, rekindled levels of pride and patriotism, and, quite understandably generated a wealth of new research and publications.
On a personal and professional level, the Maryland Bicentennial Commission offered me a first occasion to publish. In 1981, a Smithsonian official allowed my wife and me to don formal dress twice to celebrate Franco-American friendship, as invitees to a concert at Constitution Hall and to a catered fête champêtre on the grounds of Mount Vernon. Then, in July 1989, our family undertook a monthlong trip to France to renew friendships, to honor that country’s first flirtation with republicanism, and to explore the necessary and the not-quite-so-honorable consequences of another revolution.
In the coming year, there will be good reason to look back at the life and contributions of the Marquis de Lafayette and his long, triumphal return to America soil that extended from August 1824 to September 1825. Volume 1 of Becoming the Frenchified State of Maryland deals with the local tributes offered in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Frederick (422-34) at that time, and it is well worth viewing the whole journey through the eyes of his secretary, Auguste Levasseur, as translated by Alan R. Hoffman or in the original published in French in 1829.1
So what’s all this chatter about an Oriole Pageant in October 1881? Certainly, the early days of baseball were not a driving force for such a grandiose project.
The answer can be found in great detail in the pages of the Baltimore Sun.
Before baseball had developed into our national pastime, the oriole had become a recognizable symbol of our city and state. The belated sesquicentennial of the birth of Baltimore was such a satisfying venture in 1880 (see BFSMd 1: 573-5) that the city wanted to throw another bash the following year that would promote the region’s energy and the great moments in the march of history. Why not name it after our beloved bird? Baltimore would also take advantage of visitors here for the centennial of the great Yorktown battle that forced Britain to give up her designs on defeating the determined Americans and her French allies.
Preparations for a multi-day festival began in earnest in September 1881. A three-day event was to take place from Monday, October 10, to Wednesday, October 12. According to the 13 September edition of the Sun, French inhabitants of Baltimore were looking forward to welcoming the foreign guests and had already chosen to feature a scene depicting Lafayette and his fellow troops in a pageant tied in with the celebrations. These men had met the night before at Reilly’s Hotel, in the 400 block of West Franklin Street. They selected H. Bierre and the publisher, Gen. Félix Agnus, to head their local committee, which included the consul, Gabriel de Sibourg, respected scholars Léonce Rabillon Sr. and Paul Francis De Gournay, and other members of the French Benevolent Society. By 3 October, their roles were even more clearly defined, with Drs. Frederick Chatard Sr. and Jr., and Charles J. Bonaparte among those joining the list. So great was the enthusiasm for entertaining that the Sun published a list of “honorary managers” for the ball to be associated with the celebration – so many that, with adding the expected female escorts, a full dance floor for the Wednesday event appeared to be more than ensured. At that time as well, more than two dozen floats were already being readied with technical assistance of T. C. De Leon, a southern author, playwright, and newspaper editor in Mobile, Alabama, since 1873, for the city’s parade and outdoor “mystic pageant.”2 French, Italian, Caledonian, German and Black societies, the United Butchers’ Associations, and the Knights of the Golden Eagle3 had already stepped to the forefront. Officials readied Druid Hill Park for numerous activities, and grandstands were being erected in Mount Vernon Square, Howard Street, and at other strategic viewing venues.
Festivities were projected to begin on Monday the 10th, with an afternoon launch at the Battle Monument fountain and an illumination of the city in the evening. Day 2 would feature athletic events at Newington Park4 and a lacrosse match pitting Baltimore vs. New York, with the famous Gilmore’s Band from the Big Apple invited to perform at the Washington Monument from three to five o’clock that second afternoon. The parade and pageant would take place after sundown. Day 3 (12 October) would involve further courting of the French guests, a biking event at Druid Hill Park, a tugboat parade in the harbor commencing at the Light Street wharf and proceeding to Fort Carroll,5 and fireworks back at Druid Hill at eight in the evening. All would end with a ticketed grand ball at the Academy of Music, on Howard Street, near Franklin, at $10 per couple.
As the days of celebration arrived, an autumn chill was in the air and required extra wraps, and the crowds were huge and “all expectations [were] realized” for the outdoor extravaganza on Tuesday. The newspaper edition of the 12th provided columns of detail and began as such:
“Under the brilliant moonlight of an October evening in the nineteenth century, beneath the glare of colored lights, in the presence of which the stars almost paled their ineffectual fires, and aided by the witchery of the soft blue sky, came forth last night a procession that pictured the march of the ages, showed that the poetry of the earth is never dead, and with glowing colors, harmony of tone and unity of detail, set out in bold relief the history of civilization. Everything that has helped to make up the world of today was seen in miniature.”
The parade route extended for nearly five and one-half miles. Units assembled in the Druid Hill corridor at Boundary and Madison Avenues and headed southeast and then to the south along Eutaw Street to the Lexington Market area before turning west on Fayette Street for several blocks to the intersection with Carey at Franklin Square On negotiating a difficult and slow turn south to reach Baltimore Street, a number of participants temporarily abandoned their historical personae to dance, relax, and beg tobacco products from the crowd before every unit continued eastward all the way to Broadway Street, at Fell’s Point. There, float figures dismounted, with many continuing their celebration in that area. At that eastern terminus, it was reported that “the unanimous verdict of the thousands who crowded Broadway last night was that never before had they witnessed so fine a spectacle.”
The parade, which began at 7:45 and reached Fell’s Point between 10 and 10:30, comprised some forty-one sections that evening. Mounted police, marshals, musicians, and flagbearers led the extravaganza through the streets, and onlookers were entertained with tableaux representing Egypt, Rome, India, the Middle East, Greece, England, France, and Asia, modern Baltimore, and starring quite a wide range of figures – such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Diogenes, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, Caesar, Brutus, Constantine, Buddha, Mohammed, Peter the Hermit, Crusaders, Vikings, Columbus, John Hancock, Washington, De Kalb, Rochambeau, von Steuben, Admiral de Grasse, the Khedive of Egypt, Queen Victoria, and Dr. Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857), whose travels, Arctic expeditions , and lectures captured the attention of America during his short career. In the mix, there were other horsemen and a dozen different musical groups – three military bands, bagpipers, the Jubilee Singers6, Emerich’s Band, the Charles Band, and the renowned Gilmore’s Band.7
Torch bearers, electric and gas lights, and the presence of Chinese lanterns were all helpful in illuminating the route through a city full of VIPS and average folks. There were senators from seven states, State Department and military representatives, municipal officials, and foreign visitors. The press had its own favored position at the corner of Baltimore and Eutaw. Two special reviewing grandstands at the intersection of Baltimore and Howard Streets were provided by the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association and decorated with the French and American colors. There, honored guests were treated to several renditions of “La Marseillaise,” and in attendance as well was the Honorable Ho Shen Chee, secretary of the Chinese embassy in Washington, whose uniform was “almost dazzling in its brilliancy and bewildering in elaborateness.” The Sun, however, pointed out that it was not lost on the crowd that, in spite of the tributes to nations and cultures, the present and future superiority of democratic America was being touted in all the fanfare. And what should appear at the end of the procession but a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad engine in tow!
Day 3’s activities centered mainly on showing the inquisitive French visitors Baltimore’s commerce and attractions. The morning began with a social call to those guests at the Mt. Vernon Hotel by the welcoming committee, consisting of Count de Sibourg (the consul previously mentioned); his secretary, Mr. Bierre; professors Léonce Rabillon Sr., A. L. Milles, P. F. De Gournay, and Victor Rigueur; G. Peynaud, restaurateur; and Alphonse de Katow, a book subscription dealer. Until that moment, most had not apparently formally met three of the A-listers in town – the Marquis de Rochambeau, General Georges Ernest Boulanger, and a Colonel Bohrant – who were accommodated in that particular establishment.
After breakfast, the Francophone committee was joined by other gentlemen. The group split into touring groups of six, with choices of visits to the Peabody Institute, Fort McHenry, the port’s dry dock, the residence of Catholic Archbishop James Gibbons, Druid Hill Park, and the Pimlico race track. While all this was transpiring, there was the previously mentioned tugboat parade on the water. That evening featured a display of fireworks at Druid Hill at eight o’clock and a ball, at which the French visitors arrived comfortably late at ten o’clock, accompanied by the French minister from Washington and two members of the embassy’s legation.
Most probably exhausted, the visitors met at City Hall for a fire department demonstration on Thursday the 13th. A committee from the State Department then arrived to escort the French to Washington, where they would remain until the following Monday, before embarking on the steamer City of Peekskill down the Potomac, with a stop at Mount Vernon enroute to the Yorktown centennial.
1Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825 (Manchester, New Hampshire: Lafayette Press, Inc., 2006, 2007).
2T. C. (Thomas Cooper) De Leon (1839-1914) later penned a book in 1898 entitled Creole carnivals: (Mardi Gras); their ancient origin, American growth and business outcome, with sketches of outside carnivals.
3The Knights were a white Christian male group founded in Baltimore in 1872. A member had to be educated, physically fit, and civic-minded. The Knights were similar in nature to other secret societies, such as the Knights of Pythias and the Oddfellows, with special rites and members having the opportunity to move up the ranks from pilgrim, to knight, then on to crusader. F. C. Latrobe, the longtime mayor of Baltimore, was a member. Organizational outreach was extended to widows, orphans, the infirm, and the unemployed. Within thirty years of its founding, membership could be claimed in twenty states.
4Newington Park was located on Pennsylvania Avenue (extended) and was the home of the Lord Baltimore Baseball Club from 1872-74.
5According to Wikipedia, Fort Carroll is “a 3.4-acre artificial island and hexagonal sea fort in the middle of the Patapsco River.” It was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton, but it never was very useful except for its lighthouses.
6The Jubilee Singers were established at Fisk University, Nashville. TN, in 1871. They sang mostly spirituals.
7Gilmore’s Band was led by Patrick Gilmore (1829-1892), an Irish-born American bandmaster who came to the United States in 1848. He served as a band trainer in Massachusetts for the Union Army and was asked to put on a concert in New Orleans at the end of the Civil War. He helped organize a National Peace Festival on Boston Common in 1869 and a World Peace Jubilee in that city in 1872. Gilmore contributed greatly to the repertoire of American marches. Known as the first American band leader to feature a saxophone, he had a great influence on John Philip Sousa. (See Wikipedia listing and www.songhall.org/profile/Patrick_S_Gilmore)
Francophones in Maryland 