L is for the Lafayette Elm

Lafayette Elm

During America’s war for independence, France sent troops and the young 19-year-old Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) to fight with us. Lafayette became a close friend to George Washington and a hero to Americans.

In 1824, President James Monroe invited the aging Lafayette—by then the last living major general of the American Revolution—to come to the United States as the “Nation’s Guest.” Lafayette accepted for a year-long visit and made a triumphal national tour to accept the accolades of his former comrades at arms and the American people. Everywhere he went, he was met by enormous crowds and much fanfare.

In June 1825, he traveled to Boston to lay the cornerstone for the monument to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill. As part of that same swing through New England, Lafayette came to Kennebunk, Maine, on his way to Portland.

In Kennebunk he was given a parade and a lavish dinner. It is said that workmen constructing William Lord’s brick store hung out of the second floor windows and cheered Lafayette as he passed along Main Street. He addressed the crowd on Storer Street near an elm tree that came to be called the Lafayette Elm.

The elm grew to become one of the greatest specimens of its kind in the state. Measured in 1920, it had a height of 131’ and a girth of 17’ 3”. Iconography of the tree appears throughout town to this day. Kennebunk Savings Bank uses the tree emblem in its logo, and it also appears in the official seal for the Town of Kennebunk. By the late 1960s, the elm had succumbed to Dutch Elm disease and was subsequently cut down. A marker at Lafayette Park on Storer Street indicates where the tree once stood.

This is a piece of the Lafayette Elm.