Two heavyweight U.S. presidents died on July 4, 1826. Who were they?
In this 1894 rendering, John Adams, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson sit at a table during the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. (Augustus Tholey)
Here’s a little Fourth of July history to mark the Fourth of July 2017:
Did you know that three U.S. presidents died on July 4? And that two of them, the last of the living Founding Fathers, passed away within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the birth of the United States, and one is said to have uttered the other man’s name on his deathbed?
James Monroe, the fifth American president, died on July 4, 1831, at the age of 83, the last of the Founding Fathers to be president.
But the bigger coincidence is what happened five years earlier, on July 4, 1826, exactly five decades after the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, approved the Declaration of Independence.
John Adams, the second president, and Thomas Jefferson, the third, died within hours of each other and, the story goes, the last words uttered by Adams were “Thomas Jefferson survives.”
But did that really happen?
Jefferson and Adams came from different worlds — the former an aristocrat from Virginia, the latter a New Englander — and had different philosophies about the size and power of the federal government as well as the shape of the economy. Still, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, they became close friends in 1775 at the Continental Congress and Two heavyweight U.S. presidents died on July 4, 1826. Who were they? - The Washington Post: