Following the consumption of raw fruit and iced milk during Fourth of July festivities in Washington, D.C., Zachary Taylor became extremely ill. He died five days later. Historians still debate what caused his death.
Following a brief interment at the Public Vault in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., Taylor’s remains were interred alongside his parents in their family cemetery in Louisville, Ky. In 1883, the Commonwealth of Kentucky erected a 50-foot monument capped with a life-size likewise of Taylor near his grave. After his descendants advocated for turning the family plot into a national cemetery, the U.S. government built a new mausoleum for Taylor and his immediate family members in 1926.
