Contest Extended to April 30, 2025
The 2024 New Rochelle Lafayette Essay Competition
Why an essay about Lafayette?
To educate New Rochelle’s children on the person and contribution of the Marquis de Lafayette to American Independence; to endear the next generation to America’s first friend and ally of France to understand Lafayette’s legacy; to help children understand his impact on their lives today; to promote the 2024-2025 Bicentennial of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour; to inform young people and their families about Lafayette’s connection to New Rochelle.
Who can enter?
All Fourth and Fifth Grade students, who are residents of New Rochelle. They may attend public or private schools in New Rochelle, be homeschooled, or attend school outside of New Rochelle.
Entry to the contest is FREE and no purchase is necessary to enter or win prizes. Work must be original (not copied). AI-generated work will be disqualified.
Winners agree to their name, age and essay being displayed on the Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Association’s website and social media. (permission to publish must have been given by parents/guardians when essay is submitted)
When is the contest?
The contest officially opens August 20th, the actual date Lafayette visited New Rochelle in 1824. The completed essay must be emailed to [email protected] by midnight EST, April 30th, 2025, to be considered. Winners will be notified by email on May 15th, 2025.
What do the winners receive?
What is the essay supposed to look like?
The essay is to be six paragraphs, with at least 4-5 sentences for each paragraph, using the following prompts:
Paragraph 1
A short biography paragraph of the Marquis de Lafayette. Where and when was Lafayette born. What did he do before he joined the American Revolution. What type of family was he born into.
Paragraph 2
What part did Lafayette play in the American fight for independence?
Paragraph 3
When did he come back to the USA, specifically Westchester? Where, and who did he visit in Westchester? What was the name of the tavern in New Rochelle that he went to? What connection did Lafayette have with the French Huguenots?
Paragraph 4
What did General Lafayette think about slavery? What did he say about slavery after aiding America towards independence?
Paragraph 5
Did you know about Lafayette coming back to Westchester after US Independence? If General Lafayette was to time travel and come to New Rochelle today, what would you like to show him? Why?
Paragraph 6
What did you like about writing this essay? What did you learn? Finish by translating this sentence into French “Dear General Lafayette, thank you for helping us gain independence and I hope that you are proud of what New Rochelle has become today”.
RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHING LAFAYETTE
https://www.thomaspainecottage.org/lafayetteaug1824.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marquis-de-Lafayette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_Marquis_de_Lafayette
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/marquis-de-lafayette
To educate New Rochelle’s children on the person and contribution of the Marquis de Lafayette to American Independence; to endear the next generation to America’s first friend and ally of France to understand Lafayette’s legacy; to help children understand his impact on their lives today; to promote the 2024-2025 Bicentennial of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour; to inform young people and their families about Lafayette’s connection to New Rochelle.
Who can enter?
All Fourth and Fifth Grade students, who are residents of New Rochelle. They may attend public or private schools in New Rochelle, be homeschooled, or attend school outside of New Rochelle.
Entry to the contest is FREE and no purchase is necessary to enter or win prizes. Work must be original (not copied). AI-generated work will be disqualified.
Winners agree to their name, age and essay being displayed on the Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Association’s website and social media. (permission to publish must have been given by parents/guardians when essay is submitted)
When is the contest?
The contest officially opens August 20th, the actual date Lafayette visited New Rochelle in 1824. The completed essay must be emailed to [email protected] by midnight EST, April 30th, 2025, to be considered. Winners will be notified by email on May 15th, 2025.
What do the winners receive?
- Contest Winners will receive cash awards- 1st Place $400, 2nd Place $275, 3rd Place $175
- All contest winners will receive a one-year family membership to the Thomas Paine Cottage Museum that will include a special private tour including grounds, schoolhouse and firing of a musket.
- In addition, first place will receive a one-year certificate good for use of the grounds of Paine Cottage. Certain restrictions will be discussed before scheduling.
- Additional prizes to be announced at a later date.
What is the essay supposed to look like?
The essay is to be six paragraphs, with at least 4-5 sentences for each paragraph, using the following prompts:
Paragraph 1
A short biography paragraph of the Marquis de Lafayette. Where and when was Lafayette born. What did he do before he joined the American Revolution. What type of family was he born into.
Paragraph 2
What part did Lafayette play in the American fight for independence?
Paragraph 3
When did he come back to the USA, specifically Westchester? Where, and who did he visit in Westchester? What was the name of the tavern in New Rochelle that he went to? What connection did Lafayette have with the French Huguenots?
Paragraph 4
What did General Lafayette think about slavery? What did he say about slavery after aiding America towards independence?
Paragraph 5
Did you know about Lafayette coming back to Westchester after US Independence? If General Lafayette was to time travel and come to New Rochelle today, what would you like to show him? Why?
Paragraph 6
What did you like about writing this essay? What did you learn? Finish by translating this sentence into French “Dear General Lafayette, thank you for helping us gain independence and I hope that you are proud of what New Rochelle has become today”.
RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHING LAFAYETTE
https://www.thomaspainecottage.org/lafayetteaug1824.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marquis-de-Lafayette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_Marquis_de_Lafayette
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/marquis-de-lafayette
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Who is the Marquis de Lafayette & why does America still celebrate him?
A young, wealthy French aristocrat with an impressively lengthy name, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, defied his own king to enter the American Revolution against Great Britain. After his success as a military leader, he became an influential statesman who continued to support democratic revolutions and human rights causes throughout his long and illustrious career.
Born in 1757 into a family with illustrious ancestors on both sides, Lafayette at first appeared destined for a conventional aristocratic, military career. But he had other ideas.
He adopted the motto “Cur Non” (“Why Not?”) for his coat of arms and joined the Freemasons, who supported Enlightenment principles, in 1775. Two years later, at the age of 19, lured by the idea of a nation fighting for liberty and perhaps seeking revenge for the death of his father by a British cannon ball during the Seven Years’ War, Lafayette resigned his commission in the French military. He bought a ship and sailed to America, a difficult and lengthy voyage, to volunteer in the Continental Army under Gen. George Washington.
He explained his attraction to the American cause in a letter to his wife: “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 a peaceful liberty.”
Receiving his commission as major general in the Continental Army in 1777, Lafayette first saw action in September of that year at the Battle of Brandywine where he was shot in the leg and recovered from his wound at the Moravian settlement in Bethlehem, Pa. His heroism in the battle encouraged Washington to give the young Frenchman command of a division, and Lafayette stayed with his troops at Valley Forge. After a visit to France in 1779, he returned to America in 1780 with assurances of thousands of French troops who would join the war, and helped Franco-American forces win the surrender of a large British army at Yorktown, Va., in 1781, the last major battle of the war.
After the American Revolution, Lafayette became an international antislavery advocate and took on many other social justice causes. Working with Thomas Jefferson, he helped write the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen, the first step toward a constitution for the Republic of France, helping launch the French Revolution. Lafayette was a political prisoner in Austria and Prussia from 1792-97 after fleeing radical revolutionaries in France until Napoleon Bonaparte arranged for his release.
Throughout his career as statesman, he befriended Native Americans, defended the rights of French Protestants and Jews before and during the French Revolution, backed national revolutions in Europe and South America, spoke out against capital punishment and solitary confinement, and supported women and their ideas and causes.
At the invitation of President James Monroe in 1824, Lafayette returned to the United States for the last time. During his triumphal Farewell Tour of America in 1824-25, conducted as the nation prepared for its 50th anniversary celebration, Lafayette received affection and gratitude from Americans in all 24 states who enthusiastically embraced the last significant surviving general of the American Revolution.
His arrival in New York inspired four days and nights of continuous celebration—a response replicated during his visits to each of the other states, which hosted parades, balls, dinners, and other celebratory events in Lafayette’s honor.
**on August 20, 1824 General Lafayette visited New Rochelle and greeted citizens and dignitaries at Pelor Tavern. New Rochelle will honor Lafayette again this August 18, 2024 with a Living History Extravaganza. Details coming soon!
During the tour, he became the first foreign dignitary to address a joint session of Congress and met with the current, past and future presidents from John Adams to Andrew Jackson. His travels in Virginia in 1825 culminated with his final visits with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Monroe before he returned to France that September aboard the USS Brandywine, the frigate named in honor of the 1777 battle in which Lafayette was wounded.
Among the many Americans moved by Lafayette’s visit was Easton lawyer James Madison Porter, whose father and uncle served with Lafayette in the Battle of Brandywine. After meeting him at an 1824 reception in Philadelphia, Porter proposed naming Easton’s new college after Lafayette as “a testimony of respect for his talents, virtues, and signal services . . . in the great cause of freedom.” Porter would go on to serve as the College’s guiding hand for decades as president of its board of trustees.
On June 30, 1832, a month after the first students matriculated at Lafayette College, five of them—members of the Franklin Literary Society—wrote to Lafayette that they had made him an honorary member to pay “a feeble though sincere tribute of regard to a man who has proved his own and our country’s benefactor, and whose enlarged philanthropy as with a mantle of blessedness would cover the whole family of man.”
Lafayette died in Paris on May 20, 1834, and was buried in Picpus Cemetery with soil from Bunker Hill.
On Aug. 7, 2002, Congress made Lafayette an honorary citizen of the United States, an honor afforded to only eight individuals, including Winston Churchill. Lafayette and Mother Teresa were the only two made honorary citizens directly by an act of Congress.
Lafayette College, Soldier. Revolutionary. Statesman. Hero of Two Worlds.
https://about.lafayette.edu/mission-and-history/the-marquis-de-lafayette/
A young, wealthy French aristocrat with an impressively lengthy name, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, defied his own king to enter the American Revolution against Great Britain. After his success as a military leader, he became an influential statesman who continued to support democratic revolutions and human rights causes throughout his long and illustrious career.
Born in 1757 into a family with illustrious ancestors on both sides, Lafayette at first appeared destined for a conventional aristocratic, military career. But he had other ideas.
He adopted the motto “Cur Non” (“Why Not?”) for his coat of arms and joined the Freemasons, who supported Enlightenment principles, in 1775. Two years later, at the age of 19, lured by the idea of a nation fighting for liberty and perhaps seeking revenge for the death of his father by a British cannon ball during the Seven Years’ War, Lafayette resigned his commission in the French military. He bought a ship and sailed to America, a difficult and lengthy voyage, to volunteer in the Continental Army under Gen. George Washington.
He explained his attraction to the American cause in a letter to his wife: “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 a peaceful liberty.”
Receiving his commission as major general in the Continental Army in 1777, Lafayette first saw action in September of that year at the Battle of Brandywine where he was shot in the leg and recovered from his wound at the Moravian settlement in Bethlehem, Pa. His heroism in the battle encouraged Washington to give the young Frenchman command of a division, and Lafayette stayed with his troops at Valley Forge. After a visit to France in 1779, he returned to America in 1780 with assurances of thousands of French troops who would join the war, and helped Franco-American forces win the surrender of a large British army at Yorktown, Va., in 1781, the last major battle of the war.
After the American Revolution, Lafayette became an international antislavery advocate and took on many other social justice causes. Working with Thomas Jefferson, he helped write the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen, the first step toward a constitution for the Republic of France, helping launch the French Revolution. Lafayette was a political prisoner in Austria and Prussia from 1792-97 after fleeing radical revolutionaries in France until Napoleon Bonaparte arranged for his release.
Throughout his career as statesman, he befriended Native Americans, defended the rights of French Protestants and Jews before and during the French Revolution, backed national revolutions in Europe and South America, spoke out against capital punishment and solitary confinement, and supported women and their ideas and causes.
At the invitation of President James Monroe in 1824, Lafayette returned to the United States for the last time. During his triumphal Farewell Tour of America in 1824-25, conducted as the nation prepared for its 50th anniversary celebration, Lafayette received affection and gratitude from Americans in all 24 states who enthusiastically embraced the last significant surviving general of the American Revolution.
His arrival in New York inspired four days and nights of continuous celebration—a response replicated during his visits to each of the other states, which hosted parades, balls, dinners, and other celebratory events in Lafayette’s honor.
**on August 20, 1824 General Lafayette visited New Rochelle and greeted citizens and dignitaries at Pelor Tavern. New Rochelle will honor Lafayette again this August 18, 2024 with a Living History Extravaganza. Details coming soon!
During the tour, he became the first foreign dignitary to address a joint session of Congress and met with the current, past and future presidents from John Adams to Andrew Jackson. His travels in Virginia in 1825 culminated with his final visits with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Monroe before he returned to France that September aboard the USS Brandywine, the frigate named in honor of the 1777 battle in which Lafayette was wounded.
Among the many Americans moved by Lafayette’s visit was Easton lawyer James Madison Porter, whose father and uncle served with Lafayette in the Battle of Brandywine. After meeting him at an 1824 reception in Philadelphia, Porter proposed naming Easton’s new college after Lafayette as “a testimony of respect for his talents, virtues, and signal services . . . in the great cause of freedom.” Porter would go on to serve as the College’s guiding hand for decades as president of its board of trustees.
On June 30, 1832, a month after the first students matriculated at Lafayette College, five of them—members of the Franklin Literary Society—wrote to Lafayette that they had made him an honorary member to pay “a feeble though sincere tribute of regard to a man who has proved his own and our country’s benefactor, and whose enlarged philanthropy as with a mantle of blessedness would cover the whole family of man.”
Lafayette died in Paris on May 20, 1834, and was buried in Picpus Cemetery with soil from Bunker Hill.
On Aug. 7, 2002, Congress made Lafayette an honorary citizen of the United States, an honor afforded to only eight individuals, including Winston Churchill. Lafayette and Mother Teresa were the only two made honorary citizens directly by an act of Congress.
Lafayette College, Soldier. Revolutionary. Statesman. Hero of Two Worlds.
https://about.lafayette.edu/mission-and-history/the-marquis-de-lafayette/