Video: 'The American Presidents: James Monroe'

(Independence Day, Monday, July 4, 1831, at about 3:15 p.m. local time) — James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825, died today at his son-in-law’s home at 63 Prince Street at Lafayette Place in New York City from heart failure and tuberculosis. He was 73.

Monroe’s death came 55 years to the day after the United States Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and five years to the day after the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

His last words were, “I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him.” He referred to James Madison, who in fact was one of his best friends.

Monroe was originally buried in New York at the Gouverneur family’s vault in the New York City Marble Cemetery.

27 years later, in 1858, his body was re-interred at the President’s Circle in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. The James Monroe Tomb is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.