The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills... Genesis 49:26
"Founding Father Presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—died on July 4, the Independence Day anniversary.
On July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the fifth President, died at the age of 73 at his son-in-law’s home in New York City. Monroe had been ill for some time and newspapers had reported on Monroe’s illness before his passing.
Local and national newspapers were also quick to report after Monroe’s death that they thought his July 4 passing was a “remarkable” coincidence, at the least, since Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had both also died on July 4, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The oddness of the events wasn’t lost on the New York Evening Post in 1831, when the newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton called it a “coincidence that has no parallel”.
Then the Frederick, Maryland Town Herald marked Monroe’s passing on July 9, 1831 by also noting the “presidential coincidence”: “This have three of our revolutionary presidents departed this life on the anniversary of our independence; presenting the most remarkable tissue of coincidences that have marked the history of nations,” the newspaper said.
The death of these three presidents on the same day of the year was a long shot. There is an interesting blog post at the Boston University’s History Society that excerpts Margaret P. Battin’s research on the coincidental deaths of Adams and Jefferson.
But back in 1826, Daniel Webster’s eulogy for Adams and Jefferson spoke to a point that many people believed: that something other than coincidence was involved." NCC Staff
