VI.

Last Years

Monroe was 67 years old when he turned over the presidency to Adams and retired to Oak Hill in Loudoun County, Virginia. But his retirement years were clouded by financial worries. He was forced to sell his estate Ash Lawn to meet his debts. Although Congress awarded him $30,000 in 1826, he never recovered from the financial burden of his long years of public service. After his wife died, Monroe sold Oak Hill and moved to New York City to live with his younger daughter, Maria Hester Gouverneur, and her husband. He died on July 4, 1831, five years after Jefferson and John Adams had died and 55 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was buried in New York City, but in 1858 his body was moved to Richmond, Virginia, and reburied in Hollywood Cemetery.