Former U.S. President’s Daughter Body is Finally Coming Home

Almost two centuries after being buried in an unmarked grave in France, the daughter of America’s fifth president is finally returning home.

Eliza Monroe Hay — the daughter of President James Monroe — will be reburied on October 23 in Richmond, Virginia, alongside her family.

The discovery came thanks to retired teacher Barbara VornDick, who spent years unraveling the mystery. VornDick first learned about Hay in 2018 while working at Monroe’s former home near Charlottesville. What started as curiosity turned into a years-long mission that would change American history.

While researching, VornDick found a heartbreaking letter Hay wrote in 1839, pleading, “I am now in distress, in ill health, and in a foreign country… Save me from utter ruin,” according to The Washington Post.

After caring for her ailing family — including her father, who died in 1831 — Hay was left nearly penniless. Cut off from her inheritance by her brother-in-law, Samuel Gouverneur, she sailed for France in 1838 hoping friends abroad could help. Tragically, she died there just two years later.

VornDick’s breakthrough came when French officials contacted the James Monroe Museum in Virginia to warn that the graveyard where Hay rested was crumbling and her remains might be moved to an ossuary. That sparked the Bringing Eliza Home Project, which launched in 2023 to give Monroe’s daughter the dignified burial she never had.

Nearly 200 years later, Eliza Monroe Hay is finally coming home — and this time, she’ll be remembered.