In the article entitled “Merci Beaucoup Bon Marquis” in the American Public House Review, I spoke briefly about the actions of the General Marquis de Lafayette at the area that surrounds the tavern which now bears his name. In May of 1780, Lafayette and his force of over 2000 continentals and militia were frighteningly close to being captured. But he was to escape the Battle of Barren Hill to fight another day with little loss.
Just up the street from what is now the General Lafayette Inn, the Marquis climbed the steeple of Saint Peter’s Church. As the story goes, this vantage point gave him the ability to see his escape route.
The original church, founded in 1752, is long gone, but the cemetery is home to some very old and largely illegible gravestones. After learning about Lafayette and thinking of the struggles of the Continental Soldiers during the American Revolution, it can be a haunting and somewhat sobering experience to pass through this cemetery and see the colonial flags that assumingly mark the final resting place of a brave someone who served during the War of Independence.
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PUB TALK 
I have to correct you-there is a black face in Leutze’s Wahington Crossing The Delaware
Black Prince Whipple is at the stroke oar to the left of Washingtons knee
(I’m halfway through reading “The Black Presence in the American Revolution” by Kaplan & Kaplan and googled the painting for a better look. He’s really there.)
Lynn