The Marquis de Lafayette was a French noble who worked hard to support
the American Revolution. Incidentally, he was also a Freemason. Such
artifacts as the apron
he presented to George Washington have become important
icons in American Freemasonry. A nice biography of the Marquis can
be found on the Historic
Valley Forge website.
As with many Freemasons of his time, there is quite a bit of confusion surrounding Lafayette's history in the fraternity, including the date and place of his initiation. We have not been able to find any records of this information. A Short Talk Bulletin concludes that while we can't know for certain where he was made a Mason, some documents seem to indicate that it was done before his arrival in the American Colonies, which contradicts the common wisdom that he became a Freemason at Bro. Washington's insistence.
W
B Jim Tresner, 33°, has also written a
book about Bro. Lafayette, which you can purchase
from Amazon.com. In fact, there are a good
number of books about the man.
I mention the Marquis because of a curious
article I found discussing the "Fayette Factor", a term used to
describe the high number of paranormal events which seem to occur near
places named for our esteemed brother. More about this topic can be
read at The
Cryptozoologist.
Some examples of strange events listed in another article are:
- A tombstone in Fayette County, Alabama, bearing the ghostly figure of a dead man's bride,
- A Bigfoot "hot spot" in Lafayette County, Arkansas,
- And a haunted farmhouse in Fayette, Missouri!
Of course, one might suspect that the "Fayette Factor" phenomena is similar to the Bermuda Triangle, in that a search for any sufficiently common place name would turn up a comparable number of bizarre stories. I am reminded of the Discordian "Law of Fives", about which it is said, "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."
