Zachary Taylor National Cemetery

While visiting relatives over the Easter weekend, I stumbled across a little gem of a national cemetery. The Zachary Taylor National Cemetery is located off Brownsboro Road in Louisville, Kentucky. If you have the opportunity to visit that area, the cemetery is well worth a stop.



The United States maintains 112 national cemeteries and this is certainly one of the smaller ones. In the 1920's the Taylor family led an effort to turn the family burial grounds into a national cemetery. In addition to the Taylor family, veterans from the Spanish-American War forward are interred there.



Zachary Taylor's presidential term lasted from March 4, 1849 until his death on July 9, 1850. Although the official cause of death was gastroenteritis, there was some speculation that he had been poisoned. In fact, he was exhumed in 1991 and additional tests were performed on his remains in a vain effort to detect if he had been poisoned.




Taylor had a long and distinguished military career (he was known as "Old Rough and Ready") serving in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War (1832), the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) and the Mexican-American War. He was a member of the Whig Party, which was formed in opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats, but was considered rather indifferent to politics.




Zachary Taylor was also a southern slave owner, but he did oppose the expansion of slavery.




The photo below is an 1840's
Daguerreotype of Taylor in uniform.

Below are photographs of the cemetery, including the crypt that houses Taylor's remains.

The below photo is of an aircrew that was killed on August 21, 1945 six days after Japan's formal surrender announcement.