Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey
Twenty-second President - 1885-1889
-and-
Twenty-fourth President - 1893-1897
Born: March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey
Died: 8:40 a.m. on June 24, 1908, in Princeton, New Jersey
Age at death: 71
Cause of death: Heart failure
Final words: “I have tried so hard to do right.”
Admission to Princeton Cemetery: Free
Grover Cleveland is remembered for four unusual reasons: He was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, as our twenty-second and twenty-fourth president. He was the only president to marry in the White House, where he wed Frances Folsom, twenty-eight years his junior. He was the only president to support an out-of-wedlock child—the opposition’s 1884 campaign slogan, “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” nearly costing him the election. Finally, he was the only president to have a popular candy bar named after his daughter, Baby Ruth.
Grover Cleveland also had one medical distinction: he was the only president with a rubber jaw. During his second term, on a boat in Manhattan’s East River, doctors secretly performed surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in Cleveland’s mouth. His upper left jaw was removed and replaced with a rubber prosthesis. The details of the operation were not made known until after Cleveland’s death.
Grover Cleveland’s grave in Princeton Cemetery
Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey, after leaving the White House for the final time in 1897. He fell victim to medical difficulties in his later years: inflamed kidneys, swollen joints, blood clots in the lungs, and dropsy.
Stomach problems caused such pain that he had to learn how to use a pump to clear his digestive tract. By the spring of 1908, his condition began to deteriorate rapidly. Cleveland and his wife decided to send their four young children to the care of her mother at the Cleveland summer home in Tamworth, New Hampshire. When he was able to get out of bed, the former president worked in a study adjoining the bedroom of his home in Princeton.
On June 23, Grover Cleveland began to lapse in and out of consciousness. Even during lucid moments, he remained weak. His last words were, “I have tried so hard to do right.” At 8:40 the following morning, his heart gave out. His wife, a nurse, and three doctors were at his side.
On June 26 in keeping with Cleveland’s wishes, an exceptionally simple funeral service for less than one hundred guests was held at his home. The body was brought downstairs to the reception room in a closed casket where it was surrounded by palm leaves and floral tributes. The mourners, including President Theodore Roosevelt and his wife, assembled in the adjoining library. There was no eulogy and no music. Instead, Presbyterian ministers recited prayers and read William Wordsworth’s poem “Character of the Happy Warrior.”
Thirty minutes after the service began, the procession departed to Princeton Cemetery under sunny skies. Crowds along the route were smaller than expected—estimated at about five thousand. The pallbearers walked on either side of the hearse, followed by twenty-six carriages carrying the late president’s family and friends. After a brief graveside ceremony, Grover Cleveland was buried alongside his thirteen-year-old daughter, Ruth, who had died two years before. Frances Folsom Cleveland lived until 1947; she was buried next to her husband.
Touring Grover Cleveland’s Tomb at Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Princeton, New Jersey. The cemetery is always open, but prefers visitors during daylight hours.
From Trenton: Take Route 1 North to Route 571/Washington Road and head north. At the traffic circle, bear right and drive straight on Washington Road to Route 27/Nassau Street. Take a left on Nassau Street and turn left on Greenview Avenue and follow through gates of the cemetery.
From Philadelphia: Take I-95 North to Route 206. Drive north on Route 206. Continue on Route 206, passing the Governor’s Mansion. At Library Place Street, continue straight ahead. Route 27 becomes Nassau Street/21. Turn left on Witherspoon Street. Continue on to next traffic light and turn right on Wiggins. Turn left on Greenview Avenue and follow through gates of the cemetery.
After you go through Princeton Cemetery’s public gate a map box is located to your left. Grover Cleveland’s grave is located across the walkway from the Old Graveyard. His plot is numbered nine on the cemetery map.
Also buried at Princeton Cemetery are John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Continental Congress, and Aaron Burr, the vice president famous for his duel with Alexander Hamilton.
The headstone of Cleveland’s thirteen-year-old daughter Ruth
For additional information
Superintendent
Princeton Cemetery
29 Greenview Avenue
Princeton, NJ 08542
Phone: (609) 924-1369
“…tragedy struck the Cleveland household when the family’s eldest daughter, Ruth, died…”
—Richard Norton Smith
In 1896, during the last year of his difficult second term, Cleveland was prevailed upon to visit Princeton University as part of the school’s sesquicentennial observance. The academic program was organized by Dean Andrew West—“Andy Three Million West, sixty-three inches around the chest”—who became one of Cleveland’s closest friends. On moving to Princeton in 1897, ex-president Cleveland built a substantial home he called Westland. Ironically, the star of the sesquicentennial was Woodrow Wilson, a rising faculty member who, in 1902, succeeded to the university’s presidency. For a time, harmony prevailed—not surprising, given Wilson’s conservative Democratic leanings and open admiration for Cleveland.
In January 1904 tragedy struck the Cleveland household when the family’s eldest daughter, Ruth, died from diphtheria. “I had a season of great trouble in keeping out of my mind the idea that Ruth was in the cold, cheerless grave instead of in the arms of her Savior,” wrote Cleveland. In time, however, his faith reasserted itself. God had come to his help, Cleveland told intimates, enabling him “to adjust my thought to dear Ruth’s death with as much comfort as selfish humanity will permit.”
Another kind of crisis engulfed the grieving parent as Wilson and Dean West clashed over West’s proposal for a new graduate college at Princeton. Cleveland aligned himself with the tradition-loving dean, leading to an estrangement between the once and future presidents. As Cleveland lay on his death bed in the spring of 1908, he summoned West to reiterate his support for the dean’s plans. “Hang on to it like a bulldog,” the dying Cleveland told West, “no matter what is done to you.” By then he had come to regard Wilson as thoroughly unreliable.
For his part, the beleaguered Wilson declared that Cleveland was “a better president of the United States than a trustee of Princeton.” It was a sad climax to their once promising friendship, and a preview of Wilson’s unyielding stand a decade later on the League of Nations.
—RNS