SAR Presents General Comte de Rochambeau Bust to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

report by Virginia SAR 1st Vice President Ed Truslow

18 Oct 2015                                                                     Yorktown, VA

From left to right: Edward Truslow, 1st Vice President of the Virginia Society, Reverdy Wright, President of the Virginia Society, Larry Leslie, Surgeon General, Tom Lawrence, President General, Pierre Lefebvre, Sculptor, George Jones, Vice President General, Mid-Atlantic District, Peter Armstrong, Sr. Director of JYF Museum Operations and Education, Randy Flood, JYF Interpreter and Museum Educator.

     On October 18, at a banquet held before Yorktown Day events on the next day, SAR President General Tom Lawrence and other national officers, together with SAR Virginia Society officers, gathered in Yorktown to present to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation (JYF) a work-of-art bronze bust of French General Comte de Rochambeau, who with George Washington, commanded the campaign that ended the Revolutionary War in 1781.  The bust will be displayed and used in the education wing of the new American Revolution Museum at Yorktown when the Museum opens in late 2016.  The new 80,000 square foot, $50 million museum replaces the Yorktown Victory Center Museum that had opened in 1976.
     The SAR Atlantic Middle States District of 7 state societies commissioned prominent Franco-American sculptor Pierre Lefebvre to create and cast the bronze bust for presentation to the museum.  Past Virginia Society President Phil Williams was instrumental in lining up the $7,000 in donations from each of the state societies.   President General Lawrence and the other SAR officers were present for the "handover" as part of the annual Yorktown Day events which are always held on October 19 in the famed small town in Virginia.