This cemetery offers one-stop shopping for Presidential dead hole enthusiasts, with 2-3 presidential gravesites (depending on how you count them).
| President | James Monroe and John Tyler |
| Other Notable Figure | Jefferson Davis |
| Location | Richmond, VA |
| Operated By | Hollywood Cemetery Company |
| When Visited | November 2, 2018 |
| Who with | My brother, Doug |
| Presidential Significance | Both Monroe and Tyler are buried here. So is Confederate President Jefferson Davis. |
| Pre-Visit Reading | Varina by Charles Frazier, which is, yes, historical fiction, but does provide insight into Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina. |
If you think about it, there are really only two other places in the US with multiple presidential graves in the same location. One being the First Parish Church just outside Boston (Adams and Adams – see my post on that here), and the other being Arlington National Cemetery just outside DC (Taft and Kennedy).
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA, also has a pair of Presidents (Monroe and Tyler), but what gives it an interesting twist is that it also serves as the final resting place of Jefferson Davis, the one and only President of the Confederate States of America. Regardless or whether you are a “The South Shall Rise Again!” kind of person or not (and I am not), I believe a trip to visit the real US Presidents here at least warrants a swing by to see Davis as well. There’s no avoiding the Confederacy here anyhow. Situated in the former capital of the CSA, Hollywood is teeming with Confederate memorials, including more graves of Confederate generals than any other Cemetery (28 total).
I visited the cemetery on an overcast Fall day with my brother, Doug. I was visiting him in DC for a long weekend and we had taken a history-themed day trip to Fredericksburg and Richmond. Hollywood Cemetery was our last stop, and by this point we were little crunched for time as it was nearing closing time for cemetery. I love visiting Presidential gravesites but I had no desire to get locked in a cemetery overnight, Presidents or not.
A couple things worked against us, adding some extra stress. First, when driving there, our navigation directed us to the perimeter of the cemetery, but not an actual entrance. It took some circling before we found the way to get in. Second, the internal roads in the cemetery are very narrow swooped and looped around in a way that might make for a peaceful, meandering drive if you weren’t in any particular hurry and weren’t trying to make it to any place specific, but we were on a mission.
Doing our best with the map on the cemetery web site and the little blue dot showing our location in Apple Maps, we made our way towards Presidents Circle, where Tyler and Monroe are buried. Once we found a small parking lot to leave the car, we split up to find the Presidents. Presidents Circle is, like it sounds, a circle. But there were a whole bunch of other people there that weren’t Presidents. I guess I expected the actual gravesite locations would be a little more obvious, but no. Tyler’s was a large obelisk, but there were like half a dozen other obelisks in President’s Circle of similar stature. My brother found him first and then obligingly served as my photographer.
And now, some history: John Tyler was our 10th President. But first he was Vice President for a few minutes. One thing that makes Tyler notable is that he was the first Vice President to succeed a President who died in office, thanks to William Henry Harrison’s blink-and-you’ll-miss it 31-day presidency. At the time there was no 25th amendment to spell out the rules of Presidential succession. Trying to figure out what should happen next, the cabinet convened to interpret the vague language in the Constitution and determined he should officially remain VP but serve as acting President. Tyler decided he wasn’t into that idea and had himself immediately sworn is a President for real. So there’s that.
Other ways that Tyler is notable among Presidents actually relate to his burial in Hollywood Cemetery. Tyler is actually the only President to not have his death officially recognized in Washington. Why? Well, the year was 1862 and Tyler just happened to on the wrong side of little disagreement called the Civil War. And it’s not just that he had Confederate leanings. He was all in, and public about it. He spoke out against the resolutions trying to prevent war that came out of the Virginia Peace Conference (where he represented the South). He presided over the opening session of the Virginia Succession Conference, served in the Provisional Confederate Congress, and had been recently elected to the Confederate House of Representatives when he passed away.
So, when he died the US wasn’t really feeling the love. But Jefferson Davis was. He held a grand funeral for him, hailing him as a hero of the Confederacy, and draping his coffin with the Confederate flag (making Tyler the only President to be buried under another nation’s flag). The US finally did come around, springing for the monument pictured above half a century after Tyler’s death (you can see a pic of the previous marker here).
So, after Tyler, we found Monroe’s grave. It really should have been easier for us to spot it, considering it was a large, gothic, iron cage sitting in the middle of Presidents Circle. I’m going to blame that on the fact that several pics of it on the internet, including the one on Hollywood Cemetery’s online map, show it prior to its 2016 renovation (costing $900k), when it used to be black as opposed to the current off-white. How could I possibly be expected to spot a large, ornate, white iron cage when I was looking for a large, ornate, black iron cage?
Founding Father and POTUS #5, Monroe is the one dead guy I visited that day who was not an elected official in the Confederacy (he couldn’t have been, since he died way before that). Hollywood Cemetery was not his original burial site; he was originally laid to rest in New York City, where he died in 1831. Then in 1856, the governor of Virginia had him moved to his home state of Virginia. The iron cage, which was so fancy-schmacy architectural-wise that it was later named a National Historic Landmark, was added shortly thereafter to jazz up his simple sarcophagus.
After Monroe, we got back in the car and made our way to see Davis. He was much easier to find, since his family’s graves were set apart by themselves, and had a grander display, with a Confederate flag and statue of Davis. The graves of Davis and his wife, Varina, are situated at the statue’s base and apparently double as planters. We stayed here long enough to take some pictures and then headed out, thankfully making it through the front gates before they closed.
All in all, this was a good stop. The palpable Confederate presence did add an extra layer of eeriness, but hey, history isn’t always easy to interact with. I would definitely recommend allowing more than 25 minutes though! Besides the Presidents (and Davis), this is a really nice cemetery that is a popular place to visit in its own right. If/when I make it back, I’ll make sure to plan more time to explore.