Images and More: Passed Presidents - # 5

I suspect some of you are tired of Dead Presidents but I’m on a mission and a schedule. While this is the final month of POTUS graves, it is a busy one. It’s summertime and in the days before air conditioning, old men died. The Final Five all passed in the 19th century. Their burial sites will be presented this month with no more to follow...until the next one kicks.
------------------------------------
Isn’t it fascinating that among the Founding Fathers who became our Head of State, three of the first five died on the same day of the year...and that day just happens to be our nations’ birthday? Two years ago, I presented the lives and graves of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died on the 4th of July in 1826. Five years later, James Monroe bit the dust.

James Monroe Grave, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA (28 June 2005)

Monroe had another of those Founding Father pedigrees. He fought and was wounded in the Revolution. He was one of Virginia’s first senators and was twice governor of the state. He was Washington’s Minister to France and Jefferson’s Minister to England. He helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. He was Madison’s Secretary of State and Secretary of War.

As a two-term president, he was conciliatory and less partisan. He placed solid people in important positions and they did well for the country. John C. Calhoun was his Secretary of War. His Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, wrote the Monroe Doctrine, which gave pause to the powers of Europe. In it, this upstart nation of former European opportunists and rejects actually drew the line in the sand and said all of North and South America was henceforth off limits to colonization and interference by their former owner nations. It’s one of the most enduring presidential decrees and has been cited by successors through the 20th century.

Inscription on James Monroe Tomb (28 June 2005)

The inscription reads:

James Monroe

Born in Westmoreland County 28’’ April 1758.

Died in the City of New York 4’’ July 1831.

By Order of the General Assembly

His Remains were removed to this Cemetery 5’’ July 1858.

As an evidence of the affection of Virginia

For Her Good and Honored Son

Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia is a favorite of mine. A grand, Gothic burial ground with big trees and impressive grave markers. Two other American presidents, John Tyler and Jefferson Davis, can be found there along with loads of Confederate and national notables. I’d add an image but will continue this macabre fixation with future postings dedicated to special cemeteries.

Just a few yards from Number 10, John Tyler, the ardent slave holder and baby maker, lays Monroe, in what historian Richard Norton Smith calls, “the most bizarre of presidential tombs – a black iron birdcage-like affair that only Charles Addams could love.”

James Monroe Grave, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA (28 June 2005)

Mr. Monroe’s final act was a sad affair. He was in debt because the government did not pay for the White House entertainment that the Monroe’s felt was necessary. Our ex-presidents actually did not receive pensions until 1958. A number of our earlier leaders retired in a financial hole. Monroe’s wife of 44 years, ‘Eliza’ died in 1830. Soon after, he sold their Virginia plantation and moved in with his daughter and son-in-law in New York City.

The following year, the president died and was buried in his son-in-law’s family vault in lower Manhattan’s Marble Cemetery. Twenty seven years later, as the War Between the States loomed, the Virginia legislature passed a resolution to move Monroe’s remains ‘home.’

Many states have named counties after former presidents. George Washington’s name is honored in 31 different state counties. While four other presidents have more counties named after them than Monroe’s 17, none has a foreign capital named after them. As an early supporter of the American Colonization Society, Monroe fostered repatriation of freed slaves to Africa. Monrovia, Liberia is named for our fifth president.