The tablet is inscribed in two columns, the first testifying that "Beneath
these walls are deposited the mortal remains of John Adams, son of John
and Susanna (Boylston) Adams, second President of the United States." At
great length it eulogizes his life and says of his death that "On the
Fourth of July, 1826, he was summoned to the independence of immortality
and to the judgment of his God."
The second column is inscribed to his wife with similar feeling.
John Quincy Adams's last resting-place is necessarily described with that
of his father, John Adams. On the other side of the pulpit from the one
where stands the tablet and bust of the elder Adams is another similarly
dedicated to John Quincy Adams and his wife. It records that
Near this place reposes all that could die of John Quincy
Adams.
After dwelling on his official achievements, it refers to him as:
A Son worthy of his Father, a Citizen shedding Glory on his
Country, a Scholar ambitious to advance Mankind, this
Christian sought to walk humbly in the sight of God.
The second column of the tablet similarly commemorates the virtues of his
"partner for fifty years."
Thomas Jefferson's grave is at Monticello, the place of his residence. It
is a little way from his old house, in a thick growth of woods, surrounded
by about thirty graves, which are enclosed by a brick wall ten feet high.
Until 1883 it was a neglected spot, desecrated and ruined by vandal
relic-hunters. The mound was trodden level with the ground, and the
inscription on the coarse granite obelisk was beaten off and unreadable
except for the dates of birth and death.
In 1878 a movement was made in Congress to remedy this condition, but it
was frustrated by the owner of the place, who claimed the grave and the
right of way to it. An understanding was reached in 1883, and an
appropriation of ten thousand dollars made for the erection of a suitable
monument.
W.W. Corcoran, of Washington, endowed a professorship of natural history
at the University of Virginia on condition that the university should take
care of the grave. It is a place of exquisite natural beauty and grandeur,
and is now marked by a fitting monument, inscribed as was the old one, a
rough sketch of which was found. The inscription is as follows:
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration
of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious
Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Born
April 2 (O.S.), 1743; died July 4, 1826.
Jefferson's death preceded that of John Adams by only one hour.
James Madison is buried at his beautiful home, Montpelier, four miles from
Orange, Virginia. An attractive lawn of about sixty acres surrounds the
brick mansion, and in the center of this is an enclosure, one hundred feet
square, fenced in by a brick wall some five feet high. In this enclosure
is the grave of Madison. Three other graves are near it, one of them being
Mrs. Madison's.
Over the dead President's grave is a mound, from the top of which rises a
granite obelisk twenty feet high.
Near the base are inscribed the words: