Things American Presidents Were Buried With

Abraham Lincoln was buried with items from a far off land and he even popularized a new process upon his death but he's not the only president with a story to tell from the grave in the later years of his life George HW Bush earned a bit of notoriety for his unique Footwear once he was confined to a wheelchair for most of his public appearances his pants often wrote up high enough to reveal his fun and colorful socks and he certainly embraced this sartorial reputation Bush's socks became so well known that the Republican Party even launched a line of striped ones as a fundraising operation as a former president noted in an email from the Republican National Committee I'm a self-proclaimed sockman the louder the brighter the crazier the pattern the better bush even wore icatching socks to his wife Barbara's funeral in 2018 which was less than a year before his own passing they were book themed as Barbara's signature initiative was tackling illiteracy even in death Bush Senor clearly wasn't going to stop indulging in his favorite fashion trend as the spokesman Jim McGrath tweeted before his funeral the 41st president will be carried to his final rest wearing socks and pay tribute to his lifetime of service starting as an 18year old Naval aviator in war that description made them sound a bit more serious than the actual art to fighter planes flying in formation they would have been outlandish for any other president to be buried in but for George HW Bush they were almost a bit boring his legacy is going to live on for a long time to come if a president wants to go into the ground in style and money is No Object then there's one place to turn to the marcelis casket company of Syracuse New York or at least that was the case until 2003 when the company closed down during their 131 years of operation marcelus even had a coffin model known as the president Mahogany it's no surprise then that presidents like johnf Kennedy and Richard Nixon as well as their first ladies were buried in this model other politicians including two senators and a vice president chose it as well along with a who's who of other rich and famous folks har S Truman was buried in a slight variation of the mahogany while Ronald Reagan selected the Masterpiece mahogany edition their wives best and Nancy were buried in the same caskets as their husbands these are no plain boxes but rather pieces of Art and very expensive pieces of art at that as even before any modifications are made they retail in the $20,000 to $40,000 range among all American presidents the items that John F Kennedy took to the Grave seem to be the most well documented this might simply be because his death was so tragic and unexpected thus making every part of his funeral newsworthy that would remain true long after he was laid to rest in a 1996 interview Joe Hagen the mortician who was in charge of Kennedy's body after its Journey from Dallas revealed that he was asked about funeral details all the time Often by conspiracy theorists but while he couldn't help them out by offering up any weird details he didn't know exactly what the president was buried with Kennedy was Catholic so the burial items included a rosary as well as three letters from family members he was also wearing gold cuff links as well as a PT 109 tie Cliff the PT 109 was the small boat that he was on that sank during an encounter with the Japanese in 1943 he was on the margins of the war but he saw how a military operated not from the top down but from the bottom up but the most notable item in Kennedy's mahogany casket was a piece of scrimshaw slipped in by his widow Jackie scrimshaw was originally art created by men on whaling ships made past the time and Kennedy had his own collection of the intricately carved bones his favorite was the one that he took to his grave which bore an etching of the presidential seal it was a Christmas gift from his wife the year before before he became president Dwight D Eisenhower had already achieved a fair amount of Fame as the Allied Commander in Europe during World War II for many he would always be a military man first and a politician second the choices surrounding aspects of his funeral and burial reflect that he felt the same way despite rising to the very top of the ranks as a five-star general he didn't want to be buried as a military leader but rather as a common Soldier while he did get a large funeral service at Washington National Cathedral almost everything else about the service was modestly themed I hope it doesn't prove to be a disturbing influence rather than being buried in a general's uniform eisar requested the outfit that was so recognizable from his time in the war including the famous Ike jacket nor did he go to his grave with all of his many medals as he instead picked just three the Army distinguished service medal the Navy distinguished service medal and the Legion of Merit and when it came to his coffin he ass shoed the fancy mahogany of other presidents instead asking specifically for the $80 casket that was standard issued to regular soldiers he was laid to rest in his hometown in Kansas calling what Rutherford be haes chose to be buried alongside a thing is a little misleading considering it was actually a once- living creature or two of them actually you can even make the case that Hayes and his wife Lucy are in a pet cemetery at their estate in Ohio since they're outnumbered by the animals that surround them one of those pets was a horse named old Ned he lived to be 36 before dying in 1871 he was owned by Hayes but was also used as a buggy Horse by his uncle before eventually retiring for the last decade or so of his life his grave is just behind the presidents and old Ned's headstone is a small Boulder with his name and dates etched in it the Rutherford B ha's Presidential Library and Museum's websites also mentions a horse named old Whitey he was part of Hay's Civil War campaigns where his bright coloring made him a a target for confederate bullets but he survived the war and became a favorite pet of the President Hayes loved the horse so much that he actually received a telegram at the White House in 1879 informing him that old Whitey was about to pass away old Whitey is also buried next to Hayes along with the president's Greyhound Grim who was a bit of a celebrity during his time in the White House even though President Hayes is not very well known um just an amazing story of the things that he and first lady Lucy Hayes uh dealt with thing is also a bit of a misnomer in the case of ulyses S Grant but this is still a story wortht telling as it turns out president Grant's insistence on being buried with his wife Julia completely changed his gravite plans and even resulted in construction of an iconic New York Landmark being buried with one spouse's hardly a strange request indeed plenty of presidents have been laid to rest with or next to their wives but Julia Grant wasn't welcome at West Point which was where her husband wanted to be buried the problem was that the former first lady didn't fit the criteria for Burial at the military academy and they weren't willing to bend the rules but ulyses wanted to spend eternity next to his beloved wife more than he wanted to be buried at a place that meant so much to him so West Point was out in the end a plot of land in New York City was selected and a massive Mausoleum was eventually built there which is to this day the largest one in North America former president had to wait a while for his wife to join him though as she outlived him by 17 years so many aspects of Abraham Lincoln's funeral were abnormal he technically had about a dozen funerals as his body traveled by train from Washington DC to Illinois it was unloaded at various stops to allow hundreds of thousands of people to pay the specs he was also embalmed something that had become more common only a few years earlier and in fact it was all those people seeing his embalmed corpse that reportedly led to the procedure of skyrocketing and popularity Lincoln was buried in a suit with some significance as he'd also worn it when he was sworn in as president for the second time just weeks before he was assassinated considering the Monumental era during which he led the country there were plenty of items that could have reasonably joined him in his grave but even if you had an infinite number of guesses you would probably never guess what he was actually buried with at the time the New York Mar heral reported about the involvement of Captain Parker snow who had gone searching for the Lost Franklin expedition in the Arctic Captain snow offered to those in charge of Lincoln's funeral certain items that he believed were from the doomed men including a page from a prayer book and bits of uniform according to Russell Potter and experts on the Franklin Expedition and editor of a book of the expedition's letters it's not clear why anyone would have agreed to bury them with Lincoln nevertheless the people in charge reportedly did so be excellent to each other Andrew Johnson became president in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and his time in office was pretty much a disaster he was the first president ever to face an impeachment trial and he also came very close to becoming the first president removed from office though he was ultimately saved by just one vote in the Senate and that was actually the second time that Congress had attempted to remove him from Office though the first attempt at impeachment didn't pass the House of Representatives despite his disastrous tenure Johnson loved his country in his own way he didn't even let losing the Republican nomination for President in 1868 stop him from continuing his political career he ran for United States Senate won and took office in 1875 his triumphant return to Washington DC was rather short lived though as he died that same year Johnson's death served as another opportunity for him to demonstrate just how much his country meant to him or maybe he just wanted to stick it to all those political Rivals who had tried to throw him out of office accordingly the former president chose to be buried literally wrapped in the American flag inside his coffin along with a copy of the US Constitution as his pillow John Tyler is one of those president from shortly before the Civil War whose name kind of gets lost in the shuffle of American History he was a one-term chief executive who served from 1841 to 1845 in a 2019 book in which historians ranked the first 43 presidents he was chosen as the fifth worst but Tyler does deserve to be remembered as the only American president to die and be buried in the Confederacy once the Virginia wasn't in charge of the country anymore he openly supported splitting it up when the South seceded he served in the Confederate House of Representatives or rather he was elected to serve but died before he could take his seat having a former president who not only sided with their cause but chose to Live and Die in the South was a coup within a rebellion that the confederate government was quick to take advantage of Tyler's funeral was thus a major event there while at the same time it was virtually ignored by the north who now considered Tyler a traitor at the time the richest and most important people in the country often covered their coffins in cloth Abraham Lincoln's for example was completely covered in Black broad cloth before his burial only a few years later Tyler's final resting vessel was also covered in cloth that was a choice that tied him to the trador Rebellion forever as he was buried with his coffin wrapped in a Confederate flag

Channel: Grunge

Views: 30,473

Keywords: grunge, lincoln, bush, jfk, eisenhower

Id: 608tHEcdFGQ

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 26 2023