It's like a box of Crackerjacks
I’d never met a president before...he didn’t offer much in the way of conversation
141 years after his death, Kentucky state and state and county medical officials dug up Zachary Taylor. "It's like a box of Crackerjacks," coroner Richard Greathouse told The Washington Post. "We won't know what's inside until we open it up."
Claring Rising — a university professor turned historical novelist — was there for all of it, as officials entered the mausoleum, broke the vault seal and removed his remains. In fact, the entire exercise was at her behest. She was after a hair sample – definitive proof to confirm her suspicion that the 12th President of the United States was also the first to be assassinated. The writer asserted that Taylor had been poisoned with arsenic.
“In those days, there was no FBI, no Secret Service,” Rising said, in a contemporary C-Span interview. “Mrs. Taylor often complained that there were strangers wandering around in her bedroom.”
On July 4th, 1850, Taylor had become ill. Four days later, as things grew dire, the president told a member of the medical staff, “I should not be surprised if this were to terminate in my death. I did not expect to encounter what has beset me since my elevation to the Presidency. God knows I have endeavored to fulfill what I conceived to be an honest duty. But I have been mistaken. My motives have been misconstrued, and my feelings most grossly outraged.”
The following day, Taylor was dead. He had been President for less than a year-and-a-half. His physician had diagnosed a case of cholera morbus – gastroenteritis. Attending an Independence Day fundraiser to fund the construction of the Washington Monument, the President had devoured bowls of cherries and glasses of iced milk – a combination that clearly had not agreed with him.
“SIR: The melancholy and most painful duty devolves on us to announce to you that Zachary Taylor, late President of the United States, is no more,” Secretary of State John Clayton wrote in a letter to Vice President. “He died at the President's mansion this evening at half-past 10 o'clock.”
Fillmore responded, "I have no language to express the emotions of my heart. The shock is so sudden and unexpected that I am overwhelmed with grief." He added that he would inform the Congress and resign from his role as the President of the Senate, to take the Oath of office.
Taylor’s body was placed in a metal coffin with a viewing glass and interred at the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Once the grave was finished, he was was transferred to Louisville, Kentucky to be closer to his family home.
Conspiracy theories sprung up almost immediately, never fully dying out in the intervening century and a half. Asked who she suspected of poisoning Taylor, as a hearse carried his body from the tomb, Rising answered, ''Henry Clay,” adding, ''or Millard Fillmore, his vice president; he was a Clay man. Or the two Georgia politicians who physically threatened him.”
The writer convinced Greathouse and Taylor’s decedents that the $1,200 exhumation was a worthwhile endeavor.
“We finally got the lid off, and there were Zachary Taylor’s fully dressed remains,” Kentucky State Medical Examiner George Nichols later recalled. “I’d never met a president before...he didn’t offer much in the way of conversation.” A fittingly morbid joke for a man whose occupation had apparently earned him the nickname, “Dr. Death.”
A few present noted that the body was instantly recognizable, due to intact eyebrows. Scissors and tweezers collected tissue samples of Taylor’s hair and nails, before the body was returned to its tomb. "We don't want to bother him any more than we have to," Greathouse said. "And we are not in any hurry. He's been there 140 years."
Trace levels of arsenic were found in Taylor’s tissue, though not enough to confirm his murder – the chemical was in common use for contemporary medicines and embalming fluids. The coroner confirmed gastroenteritis as the cause of death.
"We found the truth,” Rising said, adding, defensively, “the truth also contains the fact that his political enemies benefited from his removal, whether they removed him or not. You can still point the finger and say they got away with it even if nature did him in.”
Fillmore’s hometown of Moravia, New York celebrated what amounted to a posthumous exoneration. “A lot of places around here are named after Fillmore and were very happy about the whole thing,” the mayor told the press. “It's very good news.”
Sources:
President Zachary Taylor's Body To Be Tested for Signs of Arsenic https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/06/15/zachary-taylors-remains-to-be-tested-for-arsenic/f3e3c9fb-ad9c-414e-a614-ccd93737d2d4/
Zachary Taylor Did Not Die of Arsenic Poisoning, Tests Indicate https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-27-mn-2064-story.html
Fillmore's hometown relieved he's cleared as murder suspect https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/06/26/Fillmores-hometown-relieved-hes-cleared-as-murder-suspect/7657677908800/