A historic scavenger hunt and more are coming to Alexandria.
Nearly 200 years ago, the Marquis de Lafayette made a historic comeback to Alexandria. The former major general and aide de camp to Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War was given a hero’s welcome when he spent a year visiting 24 U.S. states with his son, Georges Washington Louis Gilbert de La Fayette.
In recognition of the visit, the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA) and the Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee are organizing a number of events that will be held between now and October.
The scavenger hunt will be held from Sept. 1 – 8. Participants should be on the lookout for the Lafayette family crest at a number of Alexandria businesses.
“We thought this would be a great way to raise awareness about all the Lafayette events coming up in October,” said committee member Stephen Hartka. “We have a couple dozen businesses participating. Essentially, all you have to do is go pick up a scavenger hunt form from any of them, and at those locations there’s going to be a table tent with Lafayette’s family’s coat of arms, and there’s a numerical code on it. The idea is that you need to collect 10 of these codes, and you submit the codes to an email.”
Rules and information will be sent out by OHA and posted on its website and Facebook accounts soon.
The winners of the hunt will win prize tickets to future Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee events, including:
- A Lafayette walking tour (Oct. 5 and 6) of six historic locations in Old Town, led by local historian and author Elizabeth Reese
- A lecture by Reese on her latest book, “Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America’s National Capital Region” on Oct. 16 at the Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street)
- On Oct. 17, George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate will commemorate Lafayette’s visit to Washington’s tomb
