Who's Buried In Grant's Tomb? Part 1

Who's buried in Grant's tomb?

A tour of presidential gravesites.

by Brian Lamb.

Foreword.

Forty-Three Men and the Great Adventure By Presidential Historian Richard Norton Smith

"And what the dead had no speech for, when living, They can tell you, being dead, the communication Of the dead is tongued with the fire beyond the language of the living."

-T.S. Eliot

Do not believe the old axiom that dead men tell no tales. In truth, they comprise a virtual Spoon River Spoon River of self-revelation. Not long before he died, Herbert Hoover chose a burial site on a gentle knoll in his boyhood home of West Branch, Iowa. Hoover gave instructions that nothing was to be built or planted that might obstruct the view between his final resting place and the tiny, 14- by 20-foot white frame cottage where his life began in August 1874. The old man wished to draw the visitor's attention to the two-room dwelling, its dimensions identical to those of the modern American living room. What Hoover of self-revelation. Not long before he died, Herbert Hoover chose a burial site on a gentle knoll in his boyhood home of West Branch, Iowa. Hoover gave instructions that nothing was to be built or planted that might obstruct the view between his final resting place and the tiny, 14- by 20-foot white frame cottage where his life began in August 1874. The old man wished to draw the visitor's attention to the two-room dwelling, its dimensions identical to those of the modern American living room. What Hoover really really wanted to celebrate was the American dream, as embodied in the life of an Iowa blacksmith's son who would feed a billion people in fifty-seven countries, and serve one, mostly unhappy, term in the White House. wanted to celebrate was the American dream, as embodied in the life of an Iowa blacksmith's son who would feed a billion people in fifty-seven countries, and serve one, mostly unhappy, term in the White House.

Even more reticent than the Quaker orphan from West Branch was his sphinxlike predecessor, Calvin Coolidge. No friend to pomp, Coolidge once observed that "it is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man." Consistent with this philosophy, he scornfully rejected the offer of a wealthy friend to build him and his family a gleaming marble mausoleum near the old homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. Today the nation's thirtieth president lies beneath a plain granite headstone, alongside five generations of Coolidges, including the mother and son whose early deaths cast a permanent shadow across this shy, sentimental Yankee.

It was to Plymouth that I talked my parents into driving me in the summer of 1962, a few months before my ninth birthday. There, beneath the looming purple ma.s.s of Salt Ash Mountain, we discovered a toy village of six houses, a number unchanged since Coolidge was born at the back of his father's country store on the Fourth of July 1872. From this modest beginning grew a hobby that would strike others as only slightly less ghoulish than graverobbing. Cla.s.smates celebrated the Celtics and Bruins, deconstructed the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney, pulled trout out of local streams, or pasted stamps in a book. Some collected baseball cards. I collected deceased presidents. Dead men talking.

As a youngster of annoying precocity, I was entrusted with planning responsibilities for each summer's family vacation, thereby exposing my siblings to these and countless other gravesites, battlefields, and historic homes. My fellow pa.s.sengers in this station wagon h.e.l.l, immune to the thrill of the chase that motivates any true collector, took what consolation they could in each night's motel pool. The pursuit of underground history, so to speak, is not for the faint of heart, as we discovered one evening at the corner of Witherspoon and Wiggins Streets in Princeton, New Jersey. Twilight was falling; to prevent being locked in for the night, the family car was parked astride the cemetery gates.

In life a three hundred pound mountain of a man, in death Grover Cleveland is anything but conspicuous. Tracking my quarry by headlight beams, ten minutes went by. Fifteen. Twenty. Adding to the surreal tone of the hunt, who should I come upon but-Aaron Burr? As an unreconstructed Hamiltonian, I was tempted to do an impromptu jig on the old reprobate, but time was growing short, the night was growing dark and everyone in the car was growing nervous lest we be arrested for trespa.s.sing. Eventually a kind, if dubious, groundskeeper appeared, flashlight in hand, to point out the modest stone marker and urn that adorns the Cleveland plot.

Those who haunt cemeteries can sometimes put their own mortality at risk. As the nation's first dark horse presidential candidate in 1844, James K. Polk sparked little fer vor ("James K. Who?" sneered rival Whigs who rallied to Henry Clay). Polk is still easily overlooked; on a broiling August afternoon in 1976, I contracted sunstroke while scouring a treeless expanse of lawn surrounding the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville in search of the president who added more real estate to the United States than any other. Sic transit gloria Sic transit gloria.

Another youthful summer was spent in Ohio, a state which, as the self-proclaimed Mother of Presidents, is also the mother lode of presidential gravesites. By and large, chief executives from the Buckeye State demonstrate an inverse ratio between accomplishment in life and the lavishness with which that life is memorialized. (Of course, who would remember Cheops were it not for his pyramid?) Consider Warren Gamaliel Harding. Nothing so became Harding's life as his leaving it. His messy death in a San Francisco hotel room in August 1923 led to journalistic speculation that his wife, Florence, had poisoned him. In the years since, a scholarly consensus has formed around the belief that she didn't, but should have. Today the Hardings rest unquietly on the outskirts of Marion, Ohio, condemned to an intimacy largely avoided in life, thanks to the generosity of countless schoolchildren who donated their pennies to construct a great hollow drum of white Georgia marble. Not far away is the famed front porch where Harding in 1920 proclaimed his desire for normalcy, and Mrs. Harding shooed away local mistresses whose desires ran in other channels.

Still another occupational hazard, a disappointed officeseeker, ended James Garfield's brief term in the summer of 1881. Angered over Garfield's refusal to give him the Paris consuls.h.i.+p, Charles J. Guiteau shot the president in a Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., railroad station. Guiteau had another motive for his crime: a frustrated author hoping to spur sales of his book, he antic.i.p.ated today's tabloid culture, wherein notoriety is the surest ticket to a gig with Larry King (even if modern criminals generally wait until after after committing an outrage to take the agent's call.) committing an outrage to take the agent's call.) In the feverishly inventive Gilded Age, even a mortally wounded president could inspire technological advance-in Garfield's case, the world's first indoor air conditioning system. Amid the stifling heat of a Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., summer, a group of Navy engineers was summoned to the White House. Improvising a blower to force air cooled by six tons of ice through a heat vent in the president's sick room, they succeeded in lowering the temperature twenty degrees.

The patient remained snappish, hardly surprising given his diet of oatmeal and lime water. Told that the Indian warrior Sitting Bull was starving in captivity, Garfield snorted, "Let him starve." On second thought, a still more wicked alternative suggested itself. "Oh no," said Garfield, "send him my oatmeal."

Equally unrepentant, if decidedly more convivial, was Zachary Taylor, who declared on his his deathbed, "I have no regret, but am sorry that I am about to leave my friends." It will come as no surprise that the same nineteenth century that reveled in gloom took a morbid interest in last words. Everyone recalls John Adams' poignantly inaccurate declaration of July 4, 1826, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." Less well known is Jefferson's political testament to his countrymen, contained in a letter published that very day in Was.h.i.+ngton's deathbed, "I have no regret, but am sorry that I am about to leave my friends." It will come as no surprise that the same nineteenth century that reveled in gloom took a morbid interest in last words. Everyone recalls John Adams' poignantly inaccurate declaration of July 4, 1826, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." Less well known is Jefferson's political testament to his countrymen, contained in a letter published that very day in Was.h.i.+ngton's National Intelligencer National Intelligencer. Gracefully declining an invitation by citizens of the capital to attend ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson reiterated his lifelong faith in the rights of man, and an optimism vouchsafed by "the light of science." To the end, he believed it a self-evident truth "that the ma.s.s of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of G.o.d."

Professing indifference over his ancestry, Jefferson took a much different view of posterity. The inscription he composed for his own granite obelisk listed authors.h.i.+p of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, and his founding of the University of Virginia, to the exclusion of his service as the nation's third president. Andrew Jackson used characteristically blunter language to propel his parting shot. Asked if he had any regrets, the fiery Jackson replied, "Yes. I didn't shoot Henry Clay, and I didn't hang John C. Calhoun." More tenderly, Jackson admonished his family and servants, black and white, to keep the Sabbath faithfully. His last recorded words: "We will all meet in Heaven" (where, presumably, he didn't expect to encounter either Clay or Calhoun).

Jackson's great political rival, John Quincy Adams, lingered two days after a stroke felled him on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 21, 1848. Adams did did meet Clay, his onetime secretary of state, with whom he enjoyed a brief, emotional reunion. "This is the end of the earth, but I am content," he is supposed to have remarked as breath ran out. It is a claim disputed by recent biographer, Paul Nagel, who points out, truthfully enough, that John Quincy Adams was never content. William McKinley, whose initial thought on being shot was for his a.s.sailant ("don't let them hurt him"), expired early in the morning of September 14, 1901, after calling for prayer and murmuring, "Goodbye, goodbye all. It is G.o.d's way. His will, not ours, be done." The earnest Grover Cleveland did not depart this life before rea.s.suring history, "I have tried so hard to do right." At the last, a sightless Woodrow Wilson, the very picture of Scottish chill and Presbyterian rect.i.tude, gasped a single word-"Edith!"-the name of his wife and White House protector. meet Clay, his onetime secretary of state, with whom he enjoyed a brief, emotional reunion. "This is the end of the earth, but I am content," he is supposed to have remarked as breath ran out. It is a claim disputed by recent biographer, Paul Nagel, who points out, truthfully enough, that John Quincy Adams was never content. William McKinley, whose initial thought on being shot was for his a.s.sailant ("don't let them hurt him"), expired early in the morning of September 14, 1901, after calling for prayer and murmuring, "Goodbye, goodbye all. It is G.o.d's way. His will, not ours, be done." The earnest Grover Cleveland did not depart this life before rea.s.suring history, "I have tried so hard to do right." At the last, a sightless Woodrow Wilson, the very picture of Scottish chill and Presbyterian rect.i.tude, gasped a single word-"Edith!"-the name of his wife and White House protector.

It is no small irony that nineteenth-century presidents, for whom the Const.i.tution existed as a limiting, not an enabling, charter, should have their graves marked by great piles of marble and stained gla.s.s, while their allegedly imperial counterparts of the modern era are entombed more modestly. Such is the contrast between Victorians who loved nothing better than a good prolonged cry, and the prosaic emotions of our ironic, if not cynical, age. A century ago, presidents were more remote but also more revered. To be sure, millions of Americans retain indelible memories of the untimely pa.s.sings of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, but that was before twenty-four-hour-a-day exposure magnified the imperfections of our leaders.

Ever since George Was.h.i.+ngton was laid to rest "with the greatest good order and regularity" in December 1799, Americans have honored their deceased presidents with varying degrees of pomp and ceremony. As the first inc.u.mbent to die in office, William Henry Harrison was accorded a period of mourning scarcely shorter than his month-long tenure. By contrast, John Tyler's death in 1862 prompted a single paragraph notice, several days after the event, in Was.h.i.+ngton's newspapers. Such neglect may have been occasioned by Tyler's decision to throw in his lot with the Confederacy, in whose Congress he was serving at the time of his pa.s.sing. In fact, well into the twentieth century, presidential funerals were essentially family affairs. Flamboyant in life, even Theodore Roosevelt went to his grave in a small cemetery near his beloved Sagamore Hill with admirable restraint. At his wife's request Woodrow Wilson was interred in the unfinished Was.h.i.+ngton Cathedral in February 1924, following a private service in the dead man's S Street home. The first president of the modern era to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda was William Howard Taft, and then for only ninety minutes prior to his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

When Calvin Coolidge died three years later at his home in Northampton, Ma.s.sachusetts, the ceremonies were appropriately minimalist. The strains of Handel's Xerxes Xerxes filled a downtown church named for the Puritan divine Jonathan Edwards. President Hoover attended, as did Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president-elect. Local stores remained open, their owners a.s.serting, truthfully enough, that Cal would have wanted it that way. Was.h.i.+ngton limited itself to a memorial session of Congress. The wishes of the deceased carried less weight in 1945. Franklin D. Roosevelt's preference for a simple East Room service, with no embalming or lying in state, yielded to more elaborate pageantry consistent with his singular place in public affection and the history of his times. Hundreds of thousands of grieving citizens watched the president's caisson roll through the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton en route to Union Station. From there a funeral train carried FDR home to Hyde Park. A quarter century later Dwight Eisenhower became the last American president to ride the rails to his resting place, and the first to have his state funeral at Was.h.i.+ngton National Cathedral. Although the cathedral never realized its original objective as an American Westminster Abbey, it has become the filled a downtown church named for the Puritan divine Jonathan Edwards. President Hoover attended, as did Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president-elect. Local stores remained open, their owners a.s.serting, truthfully enough, that Cal would have wanted it that way. Was.h.i.+ngton limited itself to a memorial session of Congress. The wishes of the deceased carried less weight in 1945. Franklin D. Roosevelt's preference for a simple East Room service, with no embalming or lying in state, yielded to more elaborate pageantry consistent with his singular place in public affection and the history of his times. Hundreds of thousands of grieving citizens watched the president's caisson roll through the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton en route to Union Station. From there a funeral train carried FDR home to Hyde Park. A quarter century later Dwight Eisenhower became the last American president to ride the rails to his resting place, and the first to have his state funeral at Was.h.i.+ngton National Cathedral. Although the cathedral never realized its original objective as an American Westminster Abbey, it has become the de facto de facto Church of the Presidents, at least for the ceremonial planners of the Military District of Was.h.i.+ngton. Since Ike, the great Rose Window and soaring Gothic arches crowning Mount Saint Albans have twice provided a backdrop to presidential obsequies (Reagan in 2004 and Ford in 2007). Church of the Presidents, at least for the ceremonial planners of the Military District of Was.h.i.+ngton. Since Ike, the great Rose Window and soaring Gothic arches crowning Mount Saint Albans have twice provided a backdrop to presidential obsequies (Reagan in 2004 and Ford in 2007).

It is no accident that most recent presidents have chosen entombment at their presidential libraries, which are often located in settings that shaped their individual characters and outlook. Thus Harry Truman was buried a stone's throw from the office he frequented after leaving Was.h.i.+ngton (Truman especially enjoyed conducting tours of the library for visiting schoolchildren). His gravestone, inscribed with the seals of Jackson County, Missouri, the United States Senate, and the presidency, reads like a Who's Who Who's Who entry, listing not only every office Truman held, but the dates of his marriage and the birth of his daughter. Andrew Johnson, with no library to commemorate his stormy tenure, insisted on being buried in an American flag, his head resting upon a copy of the Const.i.tution whose wartime transformation he stubbornly refused to concede. Presidents, no less than historians, like to have the last word. entry, listing not only every office Truman held, but the dates of his marriage and the birth of his daughter. Andrew Johnson, with no library to commemorate his stormy tenure, insisted on being buried in an American flag, his head resting upon a copy of the Const.i.tution whose wartime transformation he stubbornly refused to concede. Presidents, no less than historians, like to have the last word.

Then there was Lyndon B. Johnson, who chose burial in a family cemetery on the banks of his cherished Pedernales River, "where folks know when you're sick and care when you die." Two decades after Johnson received homage beneath the dome of the Capitol he had dominated as Senate majority leader and president, Richard Nixon pa.s.sed up the formal commemoration of a capital city in which he had never felt at home. Emulating the example of his hero, Charles de Gaulle, Nixon opted for a less official, more heartfelt tribute in Yorba Linda, California-his Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. The town of his birth was also the site of his presidential library. As important, it epitomized the Silent Majority to whom Nixon had appealed during his time in the White House, and who turned out by the thousands to bid him farewell. In the interest of full disclosure: as one who had a hand in drafting Robert Dole's eulogy for Nixon, delivered on April 27, 1994, I will go to my grave convinced that Richard Nixon hoped to influence the 1996 presidential race from his. Should this really come as a surprise? An uncalculating Nixon, after all, is akin to a demure Madonna, nuance on talk radio, or a Unitarian pope.

In point of fact, Dole had been among the eulogists at Pat Nixon's funeral the previous June, as was California governor Pete Wilson. Both men were Nixonian favorites. Ten months later the audience was vastly larger as Dole and Wilson reprised their speaking parts, joined this time by President Clinton and Henry Kissinger. Approximately thirty-three million Americans watched Nixon's late afternoon burial in the lengthening shadow of his boyhood home. They saw a side of Bob Dole few would have predicted-except Nixon himself. For he knew that Dole's feelings lay just below the surface, much closer than his hardboiled public image suggested. As evidence, he had only to flash back to the lawn of the Russell County Courthouse in August 1976. Following his unexpected vice presidential nomination a day earlier, Dole had returned to Russell for what turned out to be a highly emotional homecoming. Looking out at the crowd on the courthouse lawn, he recognized old friends and neighbors whose spontaneous gifts to a post-World War II fund had enabled a badly wounded second lieutenant to undergo repeated surgeries on his shattered right arm and shoulder. As feelings of the moment mingled with grat.i.tude for past kindnesses, Dole teared up.

In designating him one of his Yorba Linda eulogists, Nixon antic.i.p.ated the sob in Dole's voice as he struggled to complete his tribute to the central figure in what the senator that day called the Age of Nixon. So authentic a display of grief was touching to all but the Nixon-haters in the vast audience. Moreover, by exhibiting his feelings so openly, Dole was, in effect, humanized in ways no other speech could have done. Which is exactly what Nixon intended, I believe, as he made his own funeral a showcase for his political heirs. Nixon was always a better campaign manager than candidate.

Nixon's modest headstone reminds onlookers that "the greatest honor history can bestow is the t.i.tle of peacemaker." By going home to Yorba Linda, he joined a tradition as old as George Was.h.i.+ngton, and carried on by Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Hayes, and FDR, each of whom rests on his ancestral acres. Less rooted, geographically and politically, was William Howard Taft, whose b.u.mbling performance in the White House was redeemed by his later service as Chief Justice of the United States. Far more than the proverbially jolly fat man of most accounts, Taft was a thoughtful, wry observer of a world moving a bit too fast for his tastes. After finis.h.i.+ng third in the 1912 election behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, Taft said he consoled himself with the knowledge that no other American had ever been elected ex-president so resoundingly.

So mellow a figure would doubtless have chuckled over the complaint voiced by Herbert Hoover, on leaving Taft's 1930 Was.h.i.+ngton funeral service. When his his turn came, remarked Hoover, he would see to it that mourners were not denied the pleasure of a good cigar. turn came, remarked Hoover, he would see to it that mourners were not denied the pleasure of a good cigar.

The waspish Henry Adams a.s.serted that it was easy to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution; all one had to do was trace the line of presidents stretching from Was.h.i.+ngton to Grant. Less jaded observers agree that the Grants, no less than the Was.h.i.+ngtons, have much to teach us about a nation that is nothing if not a work in progress.

As Brian Lamb demonstrates in the pages that follow, there is no better way to personalize the past than through the lives, and deaths, of America's presidents. But then, I have long believed there is more drama in a graveyard than a textbook. Meanwhile, the true C-SPAN junkie is left to grapple with an existential question beyond any president's fathoming: Is there cable in Heaven?

A 1983 photo of Richard Norton Smith with former Boston Mayor Kevin White at the King's Chapel Burial Ground in Boston. They stand behind the gravestone of Ma.s.sachusetts's first governor, John Winthrop.

Introduction.

If you like to explore old cemeteries, take heart. You are not alone, as this book demonstrates. C-SPAN's guide to presidential gravesites is for people like you and me and historians Richard Norton Smith and Douglas Brinkley, who enjoy learning through personal experience and who think that, as historic sites, cemeteries have much to offer.

Why visit presidential graves? They are gateways to American history, helping us learn more about the men who held our nation's highest office and the times in which they lived. Americans believe our presidents are no greater than the rest of us. Nonetheless, only forty-three of our fellow citizens have made it to the White House and each helped shape the direction of our nation. When we learn about these men, we learn more about our collective selves.

If you're a curious but inexperienced gravesite tourist, don't be daunted by cemeteries. Presidential tombs are not morbid. The truth is, these graves aren't so much about death as they are about personal and political symbolism. In making this tour, I've come to realize how much presidents and their families, from our earliest times, understood the public nature of presidential deaths. Obvious care was given to planning most of their funerals and memorials.

Andrew Jackson and his beloved wife, Rachel, were buried under a cupola in the garden alongside their home in Nashville, surrounded by family members and Uncle Alfred, a favored slave. Our seventh president chose to have the t.i.tle "general" chiseled into his sarcophagus. Thomas Jefferson also chose an epitaph that ignored his service as president. Visiting his iron-fenced grave at Monticello, you'll find him self-described for posterity as, "Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia."

Some of the presidents' final words can be as interesting as their epitaphs. William Henry Harrison, who served only one month of his term, seemed to have his place in history in mind while drawing his last breath. "I wish you to understand the true principles of government," he's reported to have said. "I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Grover Cleveland, succ.u.mbing to heart failure at age seventy-one, said, "I have tried so hard to do right." James Madison had no time to consider history. Expiring at the breakfast table, he tried to brush aside a niece's concern for his health, a.s.suring her, "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."

Eight presidents died in office, four of them (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy) at the hands of a.s.sa.s.sins. Those who survived the White House lived anywhere from three additional months (James K. Polk) to more than thirty-one years (Herbert Hoover). The average age of our chief executives at death was seventy.

Quality of life after the White House varied greatly among the presidents. Many early presidents, like Grant, were virtually penniless. Worried about his family's financial future, the old general worked furiously on his memoirs while gravely ill with throat cancer. Thomas Jefferson sold his extensive book collection to the Library of Congress to support his life at Monticello. Harry Truman, our thirty-third president and a man of modest means, finally put presidential financial security to rest by successfully lobbying for a presidential pension.

Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb? is full of facts like these about the post-White House years of our presidents, their deaths, and their funerals. We also tell you how to visit each presidential gravesite, taking you to small towns and to several of America's largest cities. As you progress, you'll see ornate memorials from the Gilded Age and a few tucked-away plots in lesser known burial grounds. is full of facts like these about the post-White House years of our presidents, their deaths, and their funerals. We also tell you how to visit each presidential gravesite, taking you to small towns and to several of America's largest cities. As you progress, you'll see ornate memorials from the Gilded Age and a few tucked-away plots in lesser known burial grounds.

The idea of gravesites as lessons in history was suggested to me by Richard Norton Smith, George Was.h.i.+ngton biographer and the former executive director of several presidential libraries. His foreword tells of his own childhood, spent visiting presidential graves with his sympathetic family in tow, and how this grew into a career as a historian. During a television interview about history, Richard commented to me that to truly understand something, one ought to try it for oneself.

Another historian who encouraged my experiential learning is Douglas Brinkley, who wrote the after word for our book. Doug's an historian and Jimmy Carter biographer, and, at Rice University, has been known to pile his students onto a vehicle dubbed "The Majic Bus," to visit significant American cultural and historic sites. Doug is the kind of teacher who understands that personal experiences contribute to learning in ways that reading and lectures alone cannot.

Encouraged by the expeditions of these two historians, I began my own presidential gravesite tour in 1995, visiting and photographing thirty-six presidential graves and the libraries of the living former presidents over the next eighteen months. My journey began at Arlington National Cemetery, where two presidents are buried-John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, the only president to also serve as Chief Justice. Next was Was.h.i.+ngton's National Cathedral, where Woodrow Wilson lies beneath the stone floors of the church, in the style of the great European cathedrals. With a small touch of symbolism, I also ended my tour in the Was.h.i.+ngton area, visiting George Was.h.i.+ngton's burial site at Mount Vernon on a cold and quiet New Year's Day 1997.

Visiting the thirty-two other presidential gravesites in short order led to its share of adventures. In my initial days of grave-hopping, I planned a Hudson Valley swing, a triple-hitter, hoping to conquer the gravesites of Chester A. Arthur, Martin Van Buren, and Franklin Roosevelt in a single weekend. Arriving at the Albany airport on a Friday afternoon, I set out in a rental car for Albany Rural Cemetery where President Arthur is buried, only to find that the gates had closed at 5:00 p.m. I'd come too far to miss it. Spying no one, I decided to climb the cemetery's stone fence. Thankfully, I was able to find the grave, pay my respects, and snap a few photos without getting caught.

Readers of our book won't have to break any cemetery rules. Grant's Tomb Grant's Tomb gives detailed directions gives detailed directions and and visiting hours for every presidential gravesite. Those planning longer trips will find the memorials grouped by state in the appendix. visiting hours for every presidential gravesite. Those planning longer trips will find the memorials grouped by state in the appendix.

You will also find that many of the cemeteries on our presidential tour are filled with other interesting persons. In Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery, James Garfield has tyc.o.o.n John D. Rockefeller, Ohio political boss Mark Hanna, and Lincoln a.s.sistant John Hay as his eternal neighbors. A stone's throw from Benjamin Harrison's grave in Indianapolis' Crown Hill Cemetery are three vice presidential resting sites-those of Thomas Hendricks (Grover Cleveland), Charles Fairbanks (Theodore Roosevelt), and Thomas Riley Marshall (Woodrow Wilson). A little additional exploration in these and other cemeteries will likely lead you to discoveries of your own.

Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb? was an outgrowth of C-SPAN's 1999 television series, was an outgrowth of C-SPAN's 1999 television series, American Presidents: Life Portraits American Presidents: Life Portraits. During this nine-month series, our cameras visited the birthplaces, gravesites, libraries, and family homes of the forty-one men who had then served as our country's chief executives. Hours of video about each president has been archived on our web site, www.c-span.org, along with biographical and historic details about each president and links to other sites.

Like our television series, this book was a collective effort by a number of people at C-SPAN. Carol h.e.l.lwig, now a former member of our executive staff, was the book's primary researcher and writer. With my tour and photos as her base, Carol spent months combing doc.u.ments in the Library of Congress, reading presidential anthologies, and phoning cemeteries. Weeks of writing presidential death scenes, Carol reports, turned her into a uniquely interesting dinner table conversationalist.

Carol had a.s.sistance from Anne Bentzel and Molly Murchie, and from interns Megan FitzPatrick and Henrik Acklen. Lea Anne Long had two important roles in this project-arranging travel to each cemetery and organizing nearly one hundred rolls of film doc.u.menting the gravesites, created in a time before digital cameras were ubiquitous.

Our executive a.s.sistant, Amy Spolrich, helped with photo editing for this new edition.

Marty Dominguez was the overall coordinator of this book project, while Ellen Vest was responsible for its look. Initial editing was done by Karen Jarmon. Historical verification came from two sources-Richard Norton Smith, who made contributions to each chapter and checked our facts, and from longtime C-SPAN education consultant Dr. John Splaine. John contributed significantly to many of the historical projects mounted by our network. Susan Swain, our executive vice president, adds her indispensable work on this book to a long list of C-SPAN publications.

Thanks, too, to Peter Osnos, Susan Weinberg, and the rest of the staff at PublicAffairs. Their interest in this project allows this book to make its way to many new readers.

Finally, a word of thanks to the cable industry, especially our board of cable executives-this year, headed by Advance Newhouse Chairman Bob Miron-for their ongoing support of C-SPAN. More than thirty years ago, the cable television industry agreed to fund C-SPAN as a public service. C-SPAN is a not-for-profit company, offering commercial-free public affairs programming that includes daily live coverage of the U.S. Congress, programs about nonfiction books, extensive political coverage, and special series like American Presidents American Presidents. Our affiliates, both cable and satellite, carry our three networks, C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, and C-SPAN3, as a service to their customers.

Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb? is a lighter look at American history, yet it has a serious intent. We hope our book, full of facts about the final years of our nation's chief executives, will send you on a journey of discovery that helps you better understand certain aspects of our shared national history. is a lighter look at American history, yet it has a serious intent. We hope our book, full of facts about the final years of our nation's chief executives, will send you on a journey of discovery that helps you better understand certain aspects of our shared national history.

Brian Lamb Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

December 2009 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th'inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

-Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1750

George Was.h.i.+ngton Buried: Mount Vernon Estate, Mount Vernon, Virginia First President - 1789-1797 Born: February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia Died: 10:20 p.m. on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon, Virginia Age at death: 67 Cause of death: Sore throat Final words: " 'Tis well"

Admission to Mount Vernon: $15.00 George Was.h.i.+ngton's election to the presidency was really more of a coronation. Every one of the sixty-nine electors voted for the leader whose resume read like a timeline for the new republic. Thus the commander in chief of the revolutionary army and president of the Const.i.tutional Convention became the first president of the fledgling United States of America.

Was.h.i.+ngton served two precedent-setting terms in New York and Philadelphia, the new nation's first two capital cities. In 1797, Was.h.i.+ngton, a country squire at heart, happily retired with his wife Martha to their beloved Virginia estate, Mount Vernon. Having become an icon, he learned to cope with the constant stream of sightseers to his home. He lived to enjoy only three more years at his refuge on the Potomac.

A wintry mix of snow, sleet and rain pelted Mount Vernon on December 12, 1799. Was.h.i.+ngton made his daily inspection tour of the estate but came down with a sore throat the next morning. His condition worsened and by December 14 the general's throat began to close. Doctors were summoned.

Sign marking George Was.h.i.+ngton's first tomb. The bodies of George and Martha Was.h.i.+ngton were moved to a new tomb in 1831.

The dying Was.h.i.+ngton was in control to the end: afraid of being buried alive, he ordered his secretary, Tobias Lear, not to allow his body to be interred less than three days after his death. As he was taking his own pulse, George Was.h.i.+ngton died. He was sixty-seven years old.

Was.h.i.+ngton's final instructions were nearly ignored in the grief surrounding his death. A legacy-minded group sought to have his remains interred beneath the Capitol rotunda. To aid the cause, then Representative John Marshall secretly obtained congressional permission to have Martha Was.h.i.+ngton buried beside her husband. Ultimately, Was.h.i.+ngton's wish to rest forever at Mount Vernon was respected.

His hopes for a simple funeral were not as successful. The service included a long procession of mourners, a contingent from Was.h.i.+ngton's Masonic lodge, a band, and a military honor guard. Martha was given a quieter farewell when she died and was buried next to him in 1802.

Was.h.i.+ngton's will stipulated the construction of a new tomb to replace the deteriorating old family structure on the property. When that new vault was completed in 1831, the bodies of George and Martha Was.h.i.+ngton, along with those of other family members, were moved to their current location.

Touring George Was.h.i.+ngton's Tomb at Mount Vernon Mount Vernon, owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' a.s.sociation, is located sixteen miles south of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. It is open 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. April through August; 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., March, September, and October; and 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., November through February. Admission is $15.00 for adults, $14.00 for senior citizens, and $7.00 for children ages six to eleven. Children under six are admitted free. Special rates are available for groups.

From Was.h.i.+ngton: Take the George Was.h.i.+ngton Parkway south to Alexandria/Mount Vernon. Follow the parkway past Ronald Reagan National Airport, through Old Town Alexandria. Mount Vernon is eight miles south of Old Town, located at a traffic circle at the end of the parkway.

Mount Vernon is also accessible by bus and, in the summer months, by boat. Several sightseeing services also include Mount Vernon on their tours.

To find Was.h.i.+ngton's grave from the west side of the museum, follow the road (marked as "Tomb Road") directly to the grave.

For additional information Mount Vernon P.O. Box 110 Mount Vernon, VA 22121 Phone: (703) 780-2000 www.mountvernon.org George and Martha Was.h.i.+ngton's final resting place "'I die hard, but I am not afraid to go,' Was.h.i.+ngton informed his doctors."-Richard Norton Smith Millions of tourists pay their respects before the red brick tomb whose construction George Was.h.i.+ngton had decreed in his will. Few making the trip to Mount Vernon have any idea of the theatrical scene enacted there in December 1799, by one of history's consummate actors. Taking charge of his treatment for a fatally sore throat, Was.h.i.+ngton held out his arm to be bled. "Don't be afraid," he a.s.sured his overseer. Over the next twenty-four hours or so, physicians would drain much of the old hero's blood supply. Around his neck, they placed flannel soaked in ammonium carbonate, a treatment no more effective than blisters of Spanish fly or vapors of vinegar. Heavy doses of calomel and emetick tartar emptied the patient's system of everything but the true source of his complaint.Late on the afternoon of December 14, Was.h.i.+ngton asked his wife to go to his study and retrieve two wills from a desk there. One doc.u.ment was to be burned, the other preserved in her closet. As twilight fell, the ex-president seemed already to be wearing his death mask. "I find I am going," he told his secretary, Tobias Lear, adding that he faced the end "with perfect resignation." As thoughtful as he was organized, several times Was.h.i.+ngton apologized for the trouble he was causing. Lear, fighting back tears, said he only hoped to alleviate his friend's suffering."Well," replied Was.h.i.+ngton, "it is a debt we must pay to each other, and I hope when you want aid of this kind you will find it.""I die hard, but I am not afraid to go," Was.h.i.+ngton informed his doctors. He felt his own fading pulse. The bedroom clock chimed ten as the dying man summoned his last reserves of strength. "I am just going," he whispered to Lear. "Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead." (Was.h.i.+ngton wasn't alone in his dread of being buried alive; in her will Eleanor Roosevelt stipulated that her veins be cut as a precaution against the same fate.) The next morning saw the arrival of William Thornton, a family friend, amateur doctor and self-trained architect who had secretly designed the Capitol in the nearby Federal City as a final resting place for America's first president.Never at a loss for ideas, Thornton proposed to resurrect the body laid out in Mount Vernon's handsome green banquet hall "in the following manner. First to thaw him in cold water, then to lay him in blankets, and by degrees and by friction to give him warmth, and to put into activity the minute blood vessels, at the same time to open a pa.s.sage to the lungs by the trachea, and to inflate them with air, to produce an artificial respiration, and transfuse blood into him from a lamb." Other friends intervened to permit Was.h.i.+ngton a peaceful departure.

On Wednesday, December 18, Martha remained inside Mansion House as a little procession, led by the dead man's horse with its empty saddle, moved to the old family vault. A schooner anch.o.r.ed in the Potomac fired its minute guns and a Masonic band from Alexandria played a dirge. Local militia joined a handful of relations and friends in a brief service of committal. Later Martha consented to the removal of her husband's lead-lined mahogany coffin to Thornton's Capitol vault, on condition that she be allowed to share the s.p.a.ce. Fortunately, the transfer was never made, thereby sparing the Father of his Country two centuries' exposure to lobbyists and boodlers.In 1831 Was.h.i.+ngton's remains were moved a few hundred feet to the brick tomb that overlooks the Potomac. Having been embalmed while still living by a revolutionary generation in desperate need of a unifying icon, Was.h.i.+ngton of all people would understand why a million people a year are drawn to this place, hoping for inspiration with which to meet tests unimaginable to the Founders.-RNS

John Adams Buried: United First Parish Church (Church of the Presidents), Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts Second President - 1797-1801 Born: October 30, 1735, in Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts Died: 6:00 p.m. on July 4, 1826, in Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts Age at death: 90Cause of death: Heart failure and pneumonia Final words: "Thomas Jefferson still survives." Admission to United First Parish Church: $4.00 In 1797, John Adams stepped into the historical shoes of the venerable George Was.h.i.+ngton. Though he succeeded a legend, Adams could lay claim to one notable "first" of his own: he was the first president to occupy the White House. He and his wife Abigail moved into the unfinished President's House, as it was then known, in the new capital city called Was.h.i.+ngton in 1800.

The second president had another distinction as well: he was the father and namesake of our sixth president, John Quincy Adams.

As president, John Adams had little trust in the ma.s.ses; in truth, he was a political party of one. Defeated by Thomas Jefferson in 1800, Adams had more time for his solitary pursuits: leisurely walks and books. He retreated to the family home in Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts, where he harbored animosity toward his successor. For the next twenty-five years, Adams consumed the written word. When his eyesight failed and he could no longer read, he found others to read aloud to him. After a time, he renewed active correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Though the two men had bitter political differences during their careers, they reconciled in retirement. Fate dictated that any distance between them would be bridged in death.

Marker for John Adams outside the crypt in Quincy's United First Parish Church (Church of the Presidents) July 4, 1826 was an important day for the surviving founders-the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Ninety years old and in failing health, John Adams declined all requests to partic.i.p.ate in the holiday celebrations. Instead, he stayed home with his family. That afternoon, he lost consciousness and died of heart failure complicated by pneumonia. Adams's last words were "Thomas Jefferson still survives...." He had it wrong, however. Amazingly, Jefferson had himself died just a few hours earlier.

John Adams was buried alongside his wife Abigail at the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts. President John Quincy Adams, his son, and wife Louisa were later buried at the same site.

Touring John Adams's Tomb at United First Parish Church United First Parish Church (Church of the Presidents) is located in Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts, about ten miles south of Boston.

From Boston: Take Interstate 93 or Route 128 South. Take exit 7, onto Route 3 South to Braintree and Cape Cod. Take the first exit off Route 3 South, marked exit 18 for Was.h.i.+ngton Street. Continue on Burgin Parkway through six traffic lights. At the seventh light, turn right onto Dimmock Street. Go one block and take a right onto Hanc.o.c.k Street. The church is located at 1306 Hanc.o.c.k Street.

The church is also accessible via the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority's subway system. From Boston, take the red line train to the Quincy Center station. Go right when exiting the train and continue up the stairs. Take a left at the top of the stairs and exit onto Hanc.o.c.k Street. The church is located at 1306 Hanc.o.c.k Street.

The Adams family graves are located in the bas.e.m.e.nt crypt. To reach the crypt after entering the church through the main doors, take a right, go down the stairs, and take a left.

Guided tours of the crypt are also available for $5.00, beginning at the Adams National Historical Park Visitors Center, located at 1250 Hanc.o.c.k Street. The tour also includes the John Adams birthplace and the Adams family home. Tours operate from April 19 through November 10, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is $5.00, free for those under sixteen.

A view from inside the Adams tomb For additional information United First Parish Church (Church of the Presidents) 1306 Hanc.o.c.k Street (Quincy Center) Quincy, MA 02169 Phone: (617) 773-0062 Fax: (617) 773-7499 www.ufpc.org

Adams National Historical Park Visitors Center 1250 Hanc.o.c.k Street Quincy, MA 02169 Phone: (617) 773-1177 Fax: (617) 847-3015 www.nps.gov/adam/ "Adams did not fear the great beyond."-Richard Norton Smith