List of Presidents of The United States Who Died in Office - Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor

The cause of Zachary Taylor's death has not been fully established. On July 4, 1850, Zachary Taylor was known to have consumed copious amounts of iced water, cold milk, green apples, and cherries after attending holiday celebrations and the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. Within several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. Doctors used popular treatments of the time. On the morning of July 9, Taylor died. Contemporary reports listed the cause of death as "bilious diarrhea, or a bilious cholera". Scholars believe it was a kind of severe gastroenteritis.

Taylor was interred in the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. from July 13, 1850 to October 25, 1850. (It was built in 1835 to hold remains of notables until either the grave site could be prepared or transportation arranged to another city.) His body was transported to the Taylor Family plot where his parents are buried, on the old Taylor homestead plantation known as 'Springfield' in Louisville, Kentucky.

In 1883, the Commonwealth of Kentucky placed a fifty-foot monument in his honor near his grave; it is topped by a life-sized statue of Taylor. By the 1920s, the Taylor family initiated the effort to turn the Taylor burial grounds into a national cemetery. The Commonwealth of Kentucky donated two pieces of land for the project, turning the half-acre Taylor family cemetery into 16 acres (65,000 m2). On May 6, 1926, the remains of Taylor and his wife (who died in 1852) were moved to the newly constructed Taylor mausoleum nearby. (It was made of limestone with a granite base, with a marble interior.) The cemetery property has been designated as the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.