[LAFAYETTE, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de] Lettre autographe signée par Joseph Evelett Boston, 20 juin 1825 3 pp. in-4, suscription au verso du dernier feuillet “General Lafayette"
Estimation :
3000 / 5000
Adjudication :
Invendu
Description
EXEMPLAIRE DE LAFAYETTE. IL DEVIENT MEMBRE HONORAIRE DE LA “St JOHN’S MASONIC LODGE", LA PLUS ANCIENNE LOGE MAÇONNIQUE DES ÉTATS-UNIS PUISQUE FONDÉE À BOSTON EN 1733, OÙ ELLE EXISTE ENCORE Joseph Eveleth, en tant que “Presiding Master of the St John’s Masonic Lodge" confère un certificat de membre honoraire au “R[ight] W[orshipful] Lafayette" ; il lui demande : “to gratify your brethren of this ancient Lodge by allowing your revered name to appear on the Lodge books as a member" ; il discute ensuite des modalités de la visite de Lafayette Instituted on July 30th, 1733, by Right Worshipful Henry Price, Grand Master, at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern (Boston), and known until February 7th, 1783, as “The First Lodge", this is the first duly constituted Lodge of Free Masons in America. Lafayette had visited the lodge prior to laying the foundation stone of the Bunker Hill Monument three days earlier : “At seven o’clock in the morning, passing through a crowd, agitated by glorious recollections of the 17th of June 1775, General Lafayette went to the grand lodge of Massachusetts, where deputations from the grand lodges of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Jersey, had joined the officers of the chapter and knights of the temple, to receive and compliment him. At ten o’clock two thousand free-masons, sixteen companies of volunteer infantry and a corps of cavalry, the different corporation and the civil and military authorities, assembled at the Capitol... whilst the grand master, and deputies of the masonic order, went for General Lafayette to Mr Lloyd’s, where he had retired on leaving the temple. At half after ten, the procession took up the line of march" (Levasseur, Lafayette in America, II, p. 202).
