WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Forty-five people have held the office of President of the United States since the country’s founding. (That’s 45 people, covering 46 presidencies.)
Among the men who served in that role, three of them died on July 4. In a strange coincidence, two of those presidents were Founding Fathers who died hours apart in the same year.
John Adams
John Adams served as President of the United States from 1797-1801.
Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735. He studied at Harvard University and became a lawyer. Adams was a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, and he was a key figure in the push for independence from England.
After his tenure as president, Adams retired to his farm in Quincy, Mass. where he penned elaborate letters to his fellow Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who would follow him as president.
According to his White House Historical Association biography, Adams died at his farm on July 4, 1826, whispering his last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives.”
What Adams did not know was that Jefferson died a few hours earlier.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the United States’ third president, was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Va. He inherited 5,000 acres of land from his father and a high social standing from his mother. Jefferson studied at the College of William and Mary (now William & Mary) in Williamsburg, Va., then read law.
He married Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772, taking her to live in his beloved home, Monticello, which was not fully built at the time.
Jefferson, who’s time as president was from 1801-1809, retired to Monticello where, among other things, he worked on his designs for the University of Virginia.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, a few hours after his presidential predecessor, John Adams.
James Monroe
James Monroe was the country’s fifth president. He was the last of the Founding Fathers to hold that role.
The two-term president (1817-1825) was born in Westmoreland County, Va. and attended the College of William and Mary (now William & Mary) in Williamsburg, Va. Monroe, who fought in the Continental Army, went on to practice law in Fredericksburg, Va.
Among his work as president, the foreign policy that would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine is, perhaps, best known. At its heart, the policy expressed opposition to the assertion of European control or influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Monroe died on July 4, 1831.