On July 4, 1831, the fifth president of the United States died in New York City, far from his home in Virginia. Sick and heavily in debt, the widowed James Monroe had moved north from Virginia in 1830 to live with his daughter.

Five years earlier, two of the authors of the Declaration of Independence had died on its 50th anniversary. Only sheer acts of will enabled former presidents John Adams, then 91, and Thomas Jefferson, then 83, to survive until July 4, 1826.