On this day in New York · January 6, 1919
Theodore Roosevelt Dies at Sagamore Hill
The most restless man ever to hold the presidency went quietly for once, in his sleep, in the house on the Long Island bluffs he loved more than the White House.
The facts
- Date and time
- January 6, 1919, 4:15 a.m.
- Where
- Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York
- Age
- 60
- Burial
- Youngs Memorial Cemetery, Oyster Bay, January 8, 1919, after a short service at Christ Church
Theodore Roosevelt died at 4:15 a.m. on January 6, 1919, in his sleep at Sagamore Hill, his home above Long Island Sound in Oyster Bay. He was 60. The cause was a blood clot, a coronary embolism, that stopped his heart in the night. He had never fully recovered from a bout of inflammatory rheumatism that hospitalized him that fall, on top of fevers and a leg infection he'd picked up years earlier exploring Brazil's River of Doubt. His valet, James Amos, was the last person he spoke to. Two days later, New York buried him quietly at his own wish, in the small cemetery down the road from the house he'd lived in since decades before he was president.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
the old lion is dead
Archibald Roosevelt, in a telegram informing his siblings of their father's death, January 1919
Source: Wikipedia -
Please put out that light, James
Theodore Roosevelt, his last words, spoken to his valet James Amos the night he died
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Roosevelt spent his last years an hour from the city he'd once run as police commissioner, still writing, still arguing, still restless right up to the end. His death is why Sagamore Hill is a National Historic Site today, and why Long Island still gets to claim the loudest personality ever to sit in the White House as one of its own.
Sources
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