Basic Facts:
Birth: Nov. 24, 1784 at Orange County, Virginia
Death: July 9, 1850 at Washington, D. C.
Married: Margaret “Peggy” Mackall Smith (1788-1852) on June 21, 1810
Children: Six: Anne, Sarah, Octavia, Margaret, Mary, Richard
President: One term beginning March 4, 1849
Family
Zachary Taylor and Peggy Smith Taylor had six children.
- Anne Margaret Mackall Taylor Wood (1811 – 1875) married Army surgeon, Dr. Robert Crooke Wood, Sr.
- Sarah Knox Taylor Davis (1813 – 1835) married Lieutenant Jefferson Davis at Louisville, Kentucky. She died three months after her marriage due to malaria.
- Octavia Pannel Taylor (1816 – 1820);
- Margaret Smith Taylor (1819 – 1820);
- Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Taylor Bliss Dandridge (1824 – 1909) Mary Elizabeth married William Wallace Smith Bliss, an army officer who had served with her father. Taylor appointed William Bliss as Presidential Secretary. At the age of 24, Mary Elizabeth Bliss served as First Lady during her father’s presidency, as her mother declined the social role
- Richard (1826 – 1879) became a Confederate Army general. Dick married Louise Marie Myrthe Bringier on February 10, 1851. They had five children, two sons and three daughters; their two sons died of scarlet fever during the Civil War.
Other
On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed copious amounts of raw fruit (namely cherries) and iced milk while attending holiday celebrations during a fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction. Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. His doctor diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus, a flexible mid-nineteenth-century term for intestinal ailments as diverse as diarrhea and dysentery but not related to Asiatic cholera, the latter being a widespread epidemic at the time of Taylor’s death. The identity and source of Taylor’s illness are the subject of historical speculation, although it is known that several of his cabinet members had come down with a similar illness. He died on July 9, 1850 and Fillmore became President on July 10th.
Margaret Taylor’s health deteriorated rapidly after the sudden death of Zachary Taylor; she died two years later, on August 14, 1852.
Taylor refused all postage due correspondences. Because of this, he didn’t receive notification of his nomination for president until several days later.
As a soldier always moving from location to location, Taylor never established an official place of residence and never registered to vote, He didn’t even vote in his own election. It wasn’t until he was 62 that he cast his first ballot.
November 7, 1848 was the first time a Presidential election was held on the same day in every state.
Visitors to the White House would take souvenir horse hairs from Whitey, Taylor’s old Army horse that he kept on the White House lawn.
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.