On the evening of May 6, 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette visited the city of Clarksville, Tennessee. A French noble who served alongside George Washington in the American Revolution before returning home to play an important role in the French Revolution, Lafayette was in the midst of a nationwide tour of the United States when he briefly stopped in Clarksville en route from Nashville to Louisville. The May, 28, 1825 issue of the newspaper Nashville Whig reads in part that "[a]t 6 A.M. on Friday the boat got under way, and landed at Clarksville early in the evening, where Lafayette, in order to gratify the anxious crowd of citizens who stood on the bank, went ashore for half an hour, to receive and return the friendly salutations of the people."
The Lafayette Trail is a nonprofit organization committed to retracing General Lafayette's steps during his 1824-1825 tour of the nation with commemorative markers, and hopes to install one of its markers in Clarksville, Tennessee. The marker would ideally be placed in the city near where Lafayette likely would have disembarked to greet its citizens, probably in the vicinity of the modern river-walk. They recently installed such a marker at the Hermitage in Nashville, where Lafayette met with Andrew Jackson before departing for Louisville.

The organization's mission statement reads as follows: "The Lafayette Trail, Inc. is incorporated in the U.S. state of Maryland as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code with the mission to document, map, and mark General Lafayette's footsteps during his Farewell Tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825. It aims to educate the public about the national significance of Lafayette's Tour and to promote a broader understanding of Lafayette's numerous contributions to American independence and national coherence in preparation for the 2024-2025 tour bicentennial celebrations." More information can be found at their website, http://thelafayettetrail.org/  .

That he chose to stop in Clarksville and greet the populace of what would have been at that point a very small town is indicative of the egalitarian character which Lafayette carried throughout his long and storied life, and is worth commemorating with a Lafayette Trail marker.