THE last time a boat sailed into New York Harbor bearing the Marquis de Lafayette, the arrival touched off a frenzy that would put Beatlemania to shame.

The year was 1824, and some 50,000 people — roughly a third of New York’s population — lined the streets for a glimpse of Lafayette, the “French founding father,” who was visiting the United States as part of a 13-month triumphal tour of the nation he had helped liberate nearly a half-century earlier. He spent weeks barnstorming through the city, attending a ball for 6,000 at Castle Garden and even scooping up the 5-year-old Walt Whitman for a kiss outside a Brooklyn library, Whitman later recollected.