Lucky No. 13

The subject of how the presidents died, their funerals, and gravesites is a vast topic filled with intrigue, politics, tragedy, mystery, and oddities. Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Garfield, Grant, to name a few, have a long and colorful final chapter that have provided countless historians and lovers of American history plenty of details, accounts, and stories to sort through to gather the facts and true story. Little attention, though, if any, is paid to their underlings-the vice presidents-on this subject. Save for the vice-presidents who became presidents, the rest of the lot are ignored. But this is not to say the vice-presidents don’t have interesting stories of their own worthy of reading about and discovering. One case in particular stands out: the case of William Rufus DeVane King, the vice-president who served the shortest term in office at 25 days. In 1852, King was suffering from the painful effects of tuberculosis and sought relief in the territory of Cuba; he retired his senate seat to do so. Fast forward to March 4, 1853, Inauguration Day. Democrat Franklin Pierce is sworn in as the 14th president. But vice-president elect King was not in Washington nor was he in his home state of Alabama. He wasn’t even in the U.S. He was ninety miles off the coast of Florida in the territory of Cuba. Eight days earlier, on February 24, the US Senate passed a special resolution that allowed William L. Sharkey of the US Consul in Havana, to administer the vice-presidential oath of office. It passed with a unanimous vote on March 2, and on March 24, at the Ariadne estate near Watangas, Cuba, King was sworn as the 13th vice-president. At the time he took the oath of office he was 67, well beyond the average lifespan for males in the 1850s and tuberculosis had taken a drastic toll on King’s health. On the day of his swearing-in, he was ragged, run down, and in markedly poor physical condition. The ceremony was short on pomp and long on agony. When King rose from his chair to take the oath, he had to be helped up and required assistance to remain standing for the duration of the oath. There was no celebration afterwards. King spoke briefly and retired to his carriage. Aware he was living on borrowed time, he made post haste to return to his home state of Alabama, arriving April 10 in Mobile Bay aboard the steamer Junior. As the steamer made its way up Mobile Bay King was greeted with an artillery salute of seventeen cannon. On shore at the Government Street wharf, he was greeted by a crowd on hand to welcome him back home. Two men helped him off the steamer and into his carriage; aware of his appearance to the crowd, he maintained a stiff back, kept his head up, and said he was relieved to be back home. But his sickly appearance subdued the “welcome home” celebration, a celebration that should have been a grand occasion for the state’s first citizen elected as a US vice-president, and it became apparent to those in the crowd King was nearing the end of his life. But for King, being home in Alabama was a major relief and accomplishment in and of itself. As to the office he now occupied, it was meaningless to him as he knew he would never set foot in Washington nor in the Senate chamber. King arrived at his planation Pine Hills outside of Selma and on Monday, April 18, at 6PM, he passed away. He was interred on the grounds of his plantation in a brick vault. In 1882, Selma city committee records from April and June indicate his remains were removed to Live Oak Cemetery and interred in a stately vault. However, there is a story that alleges shortly after King’s death, his relatives in Tuscaloosa County wanted his remains interred in Selma while his relatives in Dallas County (where Selma is located) wanted his remains to stay at his plantation. One day, shortly after his death, when the pro-plantation burial site relatives were absent, Tuscaloosa relatives went to his plantation, removed his coffin, and interred it in Live Oak Cemetery. Pro-plantation burial site relatives found out and moved the coffin back only to have the Tuscaloosa relatives remove the coffin and take it back to Live Oak Cemetery. However, I’ve yet to locate any record or information that supports this story but there are Selma committee meeting records from April and June 1882 that provide accounts of the city supporting the removal of his remains from Pine Hills plantation to Live Oak Cemetery, which is where he currently resides.

(The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "William R. (William Rufus) King, 1786-1853." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 4, 2021. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-a6e1-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99)