Reburying James Monroe
A Native Son Returns to Virginia 27 Years After Death
© Jim Rada
Feb 11, 2009
When President James Monroe left the White House in 1825 after serving two terms of the fifth President of the United States, he retired to his Oak Hill Plantation in his native state of Virginia.
Leaving Virginia for New York
After the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in 1830, Monroe moved to New York to live with his daughter, Maria Hester Monroe Gouverneur. Maria had married Samuel Gouverneur in the first White House wedding.
Monroe’s Death
Monroe died in New York from heart failure and tuberculosis on July 4, 1831. Thousands of mourners turned out to follow his body up Broadway to the Gouverneur Family vault in the New York City Marble Cemetery. His casket had 33 pall bearers and was followed by family, Virginians in the area and veterans as made its journey. Along the way, church bells tolled and guns fired from the New York Battery.
Problems Returning to Virginia
When Virginia officials discovered Monroe had died, the Virginia government petitioned New York to allow the body to be reinterred in Virginia.
The body was exhumed on July 2, 1858. It was removed to the Church of Ascension on 14th Street without ceremony. From there, it was taken to the Governor’s Room in City Hall for the night.
The following day the coffin was taken through the city in a military procession and loaded on the ship, Jamestown, in the East River. On the journey south, the barge encountered storms that threatened to sink it.
When the barge reached its port, an accident killed a grandson of Alexander Hamilton named Lawrence (Laurens) Hamilton. He was a member of the 7th regiment of the New York National Guard who took sick during the journey. He fell off his ship and drowned.
Once at port in Virginia, flags were flown at half mast and minute guns fired. Governor Wise and the Mayor of Norfolk also made speeches about Monroe.
Final Resting Place
Monroe’s remains were interred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. on July 4, 1858; 27 years to the day after Monroe’s death during the centennial anniversary of his birth year.
The ground outside the monument also now holds the remains of Monroe’s wife, daughter and son-in-law.
Governor Wise of Virginia had also planned to have the remains of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery, but Monroe is the only that actually was.
Hollywood Cemetery
Hollywood Cemetery opened on 1849 and got its name from the holly trees on the property.
Hollywood Cemetery is located on South Cherry Street in Richmond. Besides the remains of Monroe, President John Tyler and Confederate President Jefferson Davis are buried there. It is also the final resting place of more Confederate generals than any other cemetery (25) and 18,000 enlisted Confederate Army soldiers are buried there.
 |
