GEORGE WASHIGTON
MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA
JOHN ADAMS
QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS
Deceased US Presidents
By Dr Khalid Siddiqui
Ohio
After visiting the impressive mausoleum of President James A. Garfield in Cleveland, Ohio on July 24, 2022, I decided to visit the gravesites of all the US presidents, and have my photograph taken in front of their tombs. But why visit the presidential graves in the first place?
Because these are the gateways to American history. The visits helped me in learning more about the men who held the nation’s highest office, and the times in which they lived. In this pursuit I traveled all over the country from California to Massachusetts, and from New Hampshire to Texas. The visists involved flying to Los Angeles and New York from Cleveland, and also covering around 14,000 miles by road. It took me three and a half months (July 24, 2022 to November 3, 2022) to complete the project.
The undertaking turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated. But, it also gave me an opportunity to get to those parts of the country where I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Anyone interested in taking up this challenge must be aware that it is a logistical nightmare and requires detailed planning. Also, this adventure is physically exhausting, time-consuming, and expensive. I traveled through 23 states, and Washington DC; and spent 15 nights in different hotels/motels. Interestingly, the names of the same towns/cities kept on showing up in different states. Driving from Springfield, Illinois (where Lincoln is buried) to Chicago, I made a stop at Atlanta to get the gasoline, and then passed through El Paso! Yes, these are the names of two towns in Illinois also. While driving from Kentucky to Ohio I passed through the two towns by the same name of London only about two hundred miles apart.
The most difficult tomb to find was that of President Millard Fillmore who is buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY. There has not been a consistent policy or plan for the burial of the US presidents. It was, mostly, left up to the will of the deceased or to the wishes of the surviving close relatives. Some earlier presidents were buried in more lavish mausoleums; some were buried on their private properties; and more recently-deceased presidents, though buried in much simpler graves, ended up with an elaborate network of museums and libraries around their tomb sites.
Three presidents have been buried inside the churches. The remains of the spouses who had died earlier, in almost all the cases, had been exhumed and reinterned next to their respective husbands.
The simplest grave is that of Calvin Coolidge. He, with his family, was buried on the roadside of a small street in the tiny town of Plymouth Notch in Vermont. There is not even a fence around his grave. President Howard Taft’s gravesite is the most ignored one. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in the lot just next to that of John F. Kennedy (JFK). Over the years millions of people have visited JFK’s grave but hardly anyone has bothered to stop at Taft’s tomb next door. Even the receptionist at the Arlington National Cemetery had never heard of Taft! No president has ever been cremated. To me the most ‘interesting’ president has been John Tyler.
Of the 39 deceased US presidents, 7 are buried in Virginia; 6 in New York; 5 in Ohio; 3 in Tennessee; 2 each in California, Massachusetts and Texas; and one each in Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. I have been to George Washington’s tomb in the past but this time, despite two trips to Virginia, I was not able to have my photograph taken in front of his grave as the whole mausoleum has been undergoing renovations and is closed to the public. It is supposed to open in spring or summer of 2023. The best I could do was to get a zoom-in image of the mausoleum, but not my own photograph in it. I plan to revisit the site once it opens to the public next year.
I am thankful to the friends and family members who provided me with the logistical support for this project. I will post photographs of the graves and some interesting facts about each one of the deceased US presidents in a series of short articles.
George Washington (1789-1797): He is the only independent candidate to serve as US president, and the only person unanimously elected to that office in both elections (1788 and 1792). The election of 1792 showed the lowest percentage of turnout in any presidential election – 6.3%. George Washington set the enduring precedents of giving the title of “Mr President” for the holder of the presidency, and swearing the oath of office on Bible. Despite the popular demand, he declined to run for the third term.
He is one of the two US presidents who appointed eight Supreme Court Justices. The other one is Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was the first president who owned slaves, even while he was president. He had willed that only one of his slaves, William Lee, be freed upon his death, and that the remaining 123 slaves must work for his wife, Martha, and be freed upon her death. George Washington and Martha had no children together. In 1751, Washington made his only trip abroad when he went to Barbados. There he contracted smallpox which left his face slightly scarred. He always carried his silver pen knife with him to trim his quill pens. He had lost all his teeth, except for one, to tooth decay. He had several sets of false teeth, which he wore during his presidency, made from a variety of materials including both animal and human teeth.
He was the first and the only US president to die in the 18 th century. On hisdeathbed, he instructed his private secretary to wait three days before his burial, out of fear of being entombed alive! He is one of the four presidents sculptured at the Mount Rushmore Memorial in S. Dakota.
Washington and Benjamin Franklin appeared on the nation’s first postal stamps in 1847. Washington has since appeared on many postage issues, more than any other person. In 1976, Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank in the United States Army. His nickname was Old Man.
Note: As mentioned earlier, I couldn’t have my photograph taken in front of his tomb as the mausoleum is undergoing renovations and is closed to the public. The boarded-up tomb is visible on the right side.
2. John Adams (1797-1801): He was one of the six former US vice presidents who ran for president and won. He was the only president elected under the banner of the Federalist Party. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the White House. He was one of the ten US presidents who didn’t win the re-election.
He was one of six out-going presidents who did not attend their successors’ inauguration. Before being elected to the presidency, he used to write in Boston newspapers under the pen name of "Humphrey Ploughjogger”. He is one of the three US presidents who are buried in a church. He never owned slaves. He and President Thomas Jefferson died on the same day - July 4, 1826. On his deathbed he acknowledged Thomas Jefferson by saying: "Thomas Jefferson survives," though he was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours earlier. They were the first two presidents to die in the 19 th century. His nickname was Duke of Braintree.
