Even though Fayette County was named after General Lafayette, the Revolutionary War hero,(Before Lafayette's arrival in New York City on August 15, 1824. In an 1818, book preface to "Olive Branch", Lafayette's close friend and protégé Mathew Carey wrote of Nile's, "the best periodical work ever published in America")"I have taken the liberty to strike out 'the marquis' and say 'general' LaFayette: seeing that he himself has disavowed the title, it is to be hoped the republicans of the United States will not offend him by heaping the senseless thing upon him"</ref>) ...end comment--> the community was named in 1844 after Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a prominent citizen of the time, who had surveyed the community, named its streets, and donated lots for the Fayetteville Academy and the town's multidenominational Union Church.