The Graves of Our Presidents.

While a Very Few Are Marked by Monuments Erected at the Expense of the Nation, Others, Almost Forgotten, Are in a State of Shameful Neglect.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

The ingratitude of republics is proverbial, and perhaps no better proof of this fact need be adduced than the manner in which they neglect the graves of illustrious persons who have reflected honor on the national life. We may as well take this criticism directly home to ourselves. In the United States there is nothing to correspond with England's Westminster Abbey, and how many American schoolboys are there who are able to name the burial-places of so many as a dozen of our Presidents, famous statesmen, generals, admirals, and men of letters?

Nearly all the resting-places of our Presidents have been purchased by private means, and in several cases the monuments that mark them have been erected with funds obtained by popular subscription.

Unfortunately, however, many of these spots that should be held in veneration by the citizens of the republic have, from time to time, been suffered to remain in a state of neglect that reflects little credit on the national spirit—and this, too, notwithstanding the proposition to raise the salary of the President of the United States to one hundred thousand dollars per annum and to pension retired Presidents at twenty-five thousand dollars.

George Washington's tomb is situated at some little distance from the mansion at Mount Vernon. Surrounded by sweet briar, trailing arbutus, and other flowers, it is the Mecca of Americans as well as the revered visiting-place of thousands of Europeans. The tomb is of brick, according to Washington's desire. The front is plain, with a wide gateway arching over double iron gates, above which is the inscription upon a plain white marble slab:

Within This Enclosure Rest the Remains of GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.

The sarcophagi containing the bodies of George and Martha Washington are in the anteroom, behind which is the vault where the bodies of about thirty members of the family repose. On a tablet over the door are the words: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

On the sarcophagus of Mrs. Washington is the inscription: "Martha, Consort of Washington; died 22nd of May, 1802; aged 71 years."

That of Washington is ornamented with the United States coat-of-arms upon a draped flag, and bears the all-sufficient word:

WASHINGTON.

John Adams, the second President, rests side by side with his son, John Quincy Adams, under the First Congregational Church, where they worshiped in their native town of Braintree, Massachusetts, now called Quincy. The tomb is in the front part of the cellar, under the porch. It is fourteen feet square, and is made of large blocks of granite, slightly faced. The door is formed by a granite slab, seven feet by three.

The bodies of the two Presidents and their wives are enclosed in leaden caskets and are placed in stone coffins, each hewn from a single piece of marble. In the church, on the right side of the pulpit, as seen from the pews, is a memorial tablet surmounted by a life-sized bust of John Adams. Below the bust is a Latin line:

Libertatem, Amicitiam, Fidem, Retinebis.

Above the tablet are the words:

Thy Will Be Done

The tablet is inscribed in two columns, the first testifying that "Beneath these walls are deposited the mortal remains of John Adams, son of John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams, second President of the United States." At great length it eulogizes his life and says of his death that "On the Fourth of July, 1826, he was summoned to the independence of immortality and to the judgment of his God."

The second column is inscribed to his wife with similar feeling.

John Quincy Adams's last resting-place is necessarily described with that of his father, John Adams. On the other side of the pulpit from the one where stands the tablet and bust of the elder Adams is another similarly dedicated to John Quincy Adams and his wife. It records that

Near this place reposes all that could die of John Quincy Adams.

After dwelling on his official achievements, it refers to him as:

A Son worthy of his Father, a Citizen shedding Glory on his Country, a Scholar ambitious to advance Mankind, this Christian sought to walk humbly in the sight of God.

The second column of the tablet similarly commemorates the virtues of his "partner for fifty years."

Thomas Jefferson's grave is at Monticello, the place of his residence. It is a little way from his old house, in a thick growth of woods, surrounded by about thirty graves, which are enclosed by a brick wall ten feet high. Until 1883 it was a neglected spot, desecrated and ruined by vandal relic-hunters. The mound was trodden level with the ground, and the inscription on the coarse granite obelisk was beaten off and unreadable except for the dates of birth and death.

In 1878 a movement was made in Congress to remedy this condition, but it was frustrated by the owner of the place, who claimed the grave and the right of way to it. An understanding was reached in 1883, and an appropriation of ten thousand dollars made for the erection of a suitable monument.

W.W. Corcoran, of Washington, endowed a professorship of natural history at the University of Virginia on condition that the university should take care of the grave. It is a place of exquisite natural beauty and grandeur, and is now marked by a fitting monument, inscribed as was the old one, a rough sketch of which was found. The inscription is as follows:

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Born April 2 (O.S.), 1743; died July 4, 1826.

Jefferson's death preceded that of John Adams by only one hour.

James Madison is buried at his beautiful home, Montpelier, four miles from Orange, Virginia. An attractive lawn of about sixty acres surrounds the brick mansion, and in the center of this is an enclosure, one hundred feet square, fenced in by a brick wall some five feet high. In this enclosure is the grave of Madison. Three other graves are near it, one of them being Mrs. Madison's.

Over the dead President's grave is a mound, from the top of which rises a granite obelisk twenty feet high.

Near the base are inscribed the words:

MADISON. Born March 16, 1751.

A smaller monument beside it bears the record, "In memory of Dolly Payne, wife of James Madison; born May 20th, 1772; died July 8, 1849."

James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States, and was the third out of the five to die on July 4. For twenty-seven years after his death his body rested at New York, where he had died, but on July 4, 1858, it was removed, by order of the General Assembly of Virginia, to Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, and re-interred there on July 5.

A brick and granite vault, built five feet under ground on an eminence overlooking the beautiful valley of the James River, now holds the body. On a polished block of Virginia marble, eight feet by four, stands a large granite sarcophagus bearing a brass plate with this inscription:

James Monroe, born in Westmoreland County, 28th of April, 1758; died in the city of New York 4th of July, 1831. By order of the General Assembly his remains were removed to this cemetery 5th of July, 1858. As an evidence of the affection of Virginia for her good and honored son.

The ends and sides of the vault are formed by ornamental cast iron grating joining the supporting pillars, and so closely made as to render it difficult to see through the interstices.

Andrew Jackson is buried in the garden of his home, the Hermitage, eleven miles from Nashville, Tennessee. The grave is about two hundred feet from the house. A circular space of earth, eighteen feet across and elevated about two feet, is crowned by a massive monument of Tennessee limestone marking the spot where Jackson and his wife lie. The base covers the graves, and from it rise eight fluted columns supporting a plain entablature surmounted by an urn. The ceiling and cornices thus formed are ornamented with white stucco work.

From a base on this encolumned platform rises a pyramid. On the left, over the body of the President, is a stone bearing the inscription:

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. Born March 15, 1767; Died June 8, 1845.

On the right of the pyramid is another stone recording his undying esteem for his wife.

Martin Van Buren died at Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York, and is buried in the graveyard at the northern end of that village.

The grave is crowded by other graves, and is neglected, unfenced, and flowerless. Over it is a plain granite monument, about fifteen feet high, with an inscription which reads:

MARTIN VAN BUREN, Eighth President of the United States. Born December 5, 1782; Died July 24, 1862.

Beneath this inscription is another one which reads: "Hannah Van Buren, his wife; born March 3, 1783; died at Albany, New York, February 3, 1819."

William Henry Harrison's grave is marked by no monument and bears no inscription. It is situated fifteen miles west of Cincinnati at North Bend. A brick vault on the summit of a small hill holds the remains of Harrison and his wife and children. He died one month after his inauguration and received funeral honors all over the country, but his grave is now singularly neglected and apparently forgotten.

John Tyler, the tenth President, rests in an obscurity similar to that of his immediate predecessor, Harrison. At Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, ten yards from the unique monument which marks the grave of President Monroe, are interred Tyler's remains. No monument—save a small magnolia-tree—no inscription, no tablet; nothing but weeds and shrubs and loneliness mark the last resting-place of the President whose sad fate it was to be the nation's executive at a time when his political and temperamental tendencies were the least of all adjustable to the great office he held.

James K. Polk's remains repose at Nashville, Tennessee, almost within sight of The Hermitage, the last resting-place of President Jackson. A limestone monument marks the grave, designed by William Strickland, the architect of the Capitol. It is in Grecian Doric style (a roof supported by columns), about twelve feet square and the same height. An inscription on the architrave of the eastern front reads:

JAMES KNOX POLK, Eleventh President of the United States. Born November 2, 1795; Died June 15, 1849.

Further inscriptions inform the reader that "the mortal remains of James K. Polk are resting in the vault beneath." They eulogize his virtues and detail his public services at great length.

Zachary Taylor is buried in the old burial-ground on the ancestral farm of the Taylors, five miles from Louisville, Kentucky. The plot is about one hundred yards from the mansion and contains the bodies of three generations of the family.

A few years after Taylor's death Congress made an appropriation for the purpose of constructing a vault, and within a few years the State of Kentucky appropriated five thousand dollars to erect a monument. The sarcophagi containing the bodies of the President and his wife are separated by a marble bust of Taylor.

The monument is a gray granite shaft, surmounted by a colossal Italian marble statue, representing General Taylor in full military dress, with sword and cap in hand. The monument is inscribed with the general's name, dates of birth and death on one side, and on the opposite side are the United States coat-of-arms and implements of war in bas-relief. On the other two sides are the names of the great battles of the Mexican War.

Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President, was the second Vice-President to be called to the higher office. His grave is at Forest Lawn Cemetery, three miles from Buffalo, New York. The monument is of highly polished Scotch granite, twenty-two feet high. On the base, in raised letters, is the word "Fillmore," and farther up is the inscription which proclaims his name and the dates of birth and death.

Franklin Pierce is buried in the Minot Lot, Old Cemetery, Concord, New Hampshire. The monument over his grave is of elaborately carved Italian marble. The base is of granite, and on the plinth in raised letters is the word "Pierce." A panel is inscribed:

FRANCIS PIERCE. Born November 23, 1804; Died October 8, 1869.

Presumably Francis is the name under which he was baptized. Near the President's grave is that of Mrs. Pierce—a plain white marble spire with an upward pointing hand, marking the spot.

James Buchanan, the fifteenth President, reposes in Woodward Hill Cemetery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Buchanan plot is thirty feet by twelve, and is surrounded by an iron fence interwoven with rose-bushes, and roses are profusely dotted all over the well-kept lawn. The President's remains are in a vault covered with slabs of rock in the center of the plot. On these is a base of granite which is surmounted by a block of Italian marble, six feet four inches long, by two feet ten inches wide, and three feet six inches high. It is worked with a molded cap and base, and bears the inscription:

Here Rest the Remains of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States, Born in Franklin County, Pa., April 23, 1791, Died at Wheatland, June 1, 1868.

Abraham Lincoln's tomb is in the National Lincoln monument, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois. The base on which the column stands is seventy-two feet six inches square, with projections at the front and rear for the catacomb and memorial hall, making a total length of one hundred and nineteen feet six inches. The height of the base is fifteen feet, and round the top of it runs a strong railing.

The obelisk stands on a beautiful pedestal with four bronze statues at the corners, and is eighty-two feet six inches high from the base. In front of this, on a separate pedestal, is a statue of Lincoln. In his right hand he is holding an open scroll representing the Proclamation of Emancipation.

The top of the base and the platform round the pedestal are reached by two flights of stairs, each of which has twenty-four steps. The tomb is a vault in the catacomb in the front projection of the base. Under the statue of the President is the single word:

LINCOLN.

Andrew Johnson's grave is on a beautiful cone-shaped eminence, a little way from Greenville, Tennessee. On each side of the tomb are piers from which springs a granite arch of thirteen stones—presumably typifying the thirteen original States. Above the arch rises a column, on the marble plinth of which are inscribed the words:

Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President, U.S.A., Born December 29, 1808, Died July 31, 1875. "His faith in the people never wavered."

Below is Mrs. Johnson's name with the dates of birth and death, and the words, "In Memory of Father and Mother." It was erected by the surviving children.

Ulysses S. Grant's tomb is the finest mausoleum in America, and for beauty and majesty of situation one of the finest in the world. It stands on an eminence in Riverside Park, New York City, on the banks of the Hudson, directly overlooking the noble river. It is about one hundred feet square and one hundred and sixty feet high.

The building is in the Ionic style, strong and massive without a suggestion of severity, the surrounding pillars and the dome adding grace to its strength. Over the entrance are inscribed Grant's own words:

"Let Us Have Peace."

The inside is of Italian marble and Massachusetts granite highly polished, with the ceiling and rotunda formed of exquisitely wrought white stucco work. It contains two sarcophagi, holding the bodies of President and Mrs. Grant. These are placed in a well-shaped crypt, thirty feet deep, entered from two staircases, each of twenty marble steps. They are hewn from one solid piece of red Massachusetts granite, and weigh ten tons each. Two anterooms serve as repositories of Grant relics, which include a matchless piece of Japanese embroidery presented to Mrs. Grant by the Japanese government.

Rutherford B. Hayes rests in unostentatious simplicity in Oakwood Cemetery, Fremont, Ohio; James A. Garfield in a bronze sarcophagus in the magnificent monument erected by the nation at Lake View Cemetery, on the shore of Lake Erie; Chester A. Arthur beneath a monument representing an angel, and with a palm-leaf on his sarcophagus, at Rural Cemetery, Albany; Benjamin Harrison at Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis; and McKinley in Canton Cemetery, Canton, Ohio, not yet honored by a national memorial, but probably soon to be so.