Cenotaph of John Quincy Adams

Washington, DC

John Quincy Adams is the only U.S. President to serve in the House of Representatives after his presidential term. He represented Massachusetts in Congress from 1831 until his death in the Capitol in 1848. Because he died in office, Adams received a cenotaph in Congressional Cemetery. Its inscription knocks a year off of his age and fails to mention that he was, once, the U.S. President.

Designed by Architect of the Capitol Benjamin Latrobe, the cuboid cenotaph monument is made of the same type of sandstone used in the construction of the Capitol and the White House. Congressional Cemetery has 171 of these identical, blocky memorials with conical tops. Some are placed atop bodies, some serve as true cenotaphs (empty tombs).

Not everyone approved of the Latrobe cenotaphs. The practice of placing these memorials fell out of use in the 1870s when George Frisbee Hoar -- like Adams, a member of the House of Representatives -- killed Congressional funding for future cenotaphs. To be buried beneath the odd-looking structures, he said, was "adding new terror to death."

John Quincy Adams escaped that fate by being permanently interred elsewhere, in Quincy, Massachusetts.

[Grave report by Kurt Deion]