On September 21, 2024, my oldest grandchild, Meade Wills, married Cyril LeMay, a Frenchman from Paris. Meade and Cyril have a home in Amsterdam. One hundred twenty friends attended the wedding from 17 countries. Because many were from France, I spoke to them, at the rehearsal dinner, about early connections between The United States and France.
Here is what I said: When James Robertson and his party arrived at the French Lick on the Cumberland River in December 1780, the settlement was known as Nashborough. The pioneers, however, quickly changed the name to Nashville. During the Revolutionary War The French, initially neutral, declared war on Great Britain in 1778, hoping to restore French influence in North America and take revenge for their losing the Seven Years War to the British.
A French nobleman, Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in Charleston on June 13, 1777, and enlisted in the Colonial Army, bonding with General Washington, who named him major general although Lafayette was only 20 years old. He first fought at Brandywine and was with Washington at Valley Forge the cold winter of 1777-78. Wounded in the leg in 1779, he returned to France to recover. After being imprisoned in Austria, he then returned to America, regaining his title as major general.
In 1781, American forces under Washington and Lafayette and British forces under Lord Cornwallis were headed to Yorktown for a final showdown. After a few initial successes, Cornwallis realized that he was trapped. French Admiral De Grasse had brought his navy to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay from Santa Dominga, where they were based, and, after defeating the British fleet in the Battle of the Chesapeake, blockaded Yorktown, then forced Cornwallis to surrender. Two years later, at the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain recognized the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America. Without the help of France, the fight for independence would have failed.
Forty-one years later, the United States invited the Marquis de Lafayette to return to America for a tour of the country. Nashville was one of his stops. He arrived there in the morning on May 4, 1825. Welcomed by 25,000 Tennesseans, including Felix Demonbreun, a French trapper who, during the 1770s, lived periodically in a cave a few miles upstream from the French Lick, where he traded with the Inidians. On opening day, there was an elaborate parade, a reception by the ladies at the Masonic Hall, a dinner at the Nashville Inn, and a formal call on Gov. William Carroll. That night and the following night, Lafayette and his party had quarters in the home of Dr. Boyd McNairy, Meade’s direct ancestor, on Summer street.
Nashville’s first physician had been host to many famous guests. On Friday, Lafayette reviewed the militia, visited the Nashville Female Academy and Cumberland College. That afternoon, he visited The Hermitage where he had dinner with General and Mrs. Andrew Jackson. Lafayette was so impressed with Jackson that he commissioned an artist to paint an oil portrait of Jackson. I own that portrait today. That evening, Lafayette had tea with Nashville Mayor, Robert Currey, followed by a brilliant ball at the Masonic Hall.
Lafayette and his party, which included hIs son, George Washington Lafayette, left on May 6 on the Mechanic headed to Louisville. When Lafayette sailed down Chesapeake Bay in September 1825, headed home, he had a large suitcase filled with American soil which he wanted to put on his grave. He also received a gIft of $200,000 in bonds given him by Congress. Four years after Lafayette’s departure, John Harding, another of Meade’s direct ancestors, named his Thoroughbred stud farm “Belle Meade,” which in French means “beautiful meadow.” Although the Hardings came from England to Virginia, John Harding’s grandfather, William Harding, married SaraLaForce in Goochland County, Virginia. Her father, Rene LaForce, a French Huguenot, died in 1728 in Goochland County.
So, Meade Wills LeMay has a bit of French blood. In 2024, she visited the French Huguenot Church in Charleston with her parents, who have a second home in the city.
Baron de Kerbreck and Captain De La Chere of France toured Belle Meade in the spring of 1881 as representatives of the French government inspecting horses and breeding establishments in the United States. In their report, they said that “the best specimen of a Thoroughbred horse” was at General Harding’s. There, they said, they, “saw a crop of Thoroughbred yearlings that surpassed anything we had ever seen in England or France.”