When President Zachary Taylor began to complain of stomach pains on July 4, 1850, the presidential physicians labeled it cholera morbus, or gastroenteritis. They believed his sudden illness was due to eating to many cherries and iced buttermilk.
By July 9th, Taylor was dead. The Whig party, which had run him for President, failed to send condolences to his widow. After a short time, the 12th President of the United States was forgotten. His Vice President and successor, Millard Fillmore, rose to power and fame.
At the time of his death, everyone accepted his demise as an act of fate. It wasnΓÇÖt until 1991 that author and former humanities teacher Clara Rising brought up the idea of assassination. While doing historical research for her book In the Season of the Wild Rose, she realized that TaylorΓÇÖs political adversaries had gained a great deal by the death of the president. She went to Gainesville-based forensic pathologist Dr. William Maples and asked if Taylor could have been assassinated. Maples thought it strange that a strong man such as Taylor would have been killed by a mild stomach disease, he suggested that he might have been poisoned with arsenic over a period of several months.
Rising contacted the descendants of Taylor to get permission to exhume his body. While working with the coroner from Jefferson County, Kentucky (TaylorΓÇÖs gravesite), the Department of VeteranΓÇÖs Affairs leaked the story to the press. The following onslaught of questions and public scrutiny gave even more credibility to the case.
Rising hoped that DNA testing of TaylorΓÇÖs hair and finger nails would should arsenic in the body. The grave was exhumed in the Spring of 1991 surrounded by over 150 reporters from around the world.
Within a month, the results came back. There was no proof that Taylor had been poisoned. They could find no trace of arsenic in his system. One possibility still remains though. If Taylor had been poisoned all at once, the arsenic might not have shown up in his DNA that quickly. However, historians now accept that the case is closed and Taylor did indeed die of natural causes.
