From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
Lafayette Office, "General Lafayette Stayed Here", Saco, Maine C83
Image of an imposing c. 1810 house with three stories and a hip roof, typical of many mansions of the Federal period in northeastern coastal New England. Eastern's title, "Lafayette's Office, Genera Lafayette Stayed Here", is probably wrong. An Internet search shows no evidence of this; rather, there is documentation that the General visited and may have stayed overnight at The Cleaves' Hotel in Saco during his visit to the United states in 1825. His extensive tour of the Mid-Atlantic states, New York and New England marked the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution in which he had taken an important part. There is also no evidence the Lafayette had an office in Saco. In the first decades of the 20th century and lasting into the 1980s, myths abounded of Revolutionary War heros' presences in towns, perpetuated by local history buffs and societies wishng to associate their localities with important Revolutionary figures.
