Martin Van Buren ~ December 5, 1782 - July 24, 1862

8th President, 1837 - 1841
Martin Van Buren sites visited:
Van Buren was born in this house at 46 Hudson Street in Kinderhook, New York. It looked like it was undergoing renovation when we stopped by in 2025.
Van Buren bought the Lindenwald estate in Kinderhook in 1839 and lived there from 1841 until his death in 1862. It looks like it was a magnificent home.
This portrait was hung as part of a Vice President's exhibit at the Gerald R Ford Museum in Grand Rapids MI. Van Buren served as Jackson's VP (1833-1837).
His statue in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Martin Van Buren was born in the Dutch community of Kinderhook so he was the only President to have spoken English as his second language, and was the first President who was not born a British subject. The only president shorter than Van Buren (5'6") was James Monroe (5'4").
He unfortunately continued Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal policies and enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This resulted in the death of about one quarter of the Cherokee nation. He also viewed abolitionism as a threat to the nation's unity.
Sadly, his wife Hannah (1783-1819) died of tuberculosis before he became President and he never remarried. His son, Martin Jr., died in France in 1855, from complications of tuberculosis.
Now all three of them rest together in the Kinderhook Reformed Church Cemetery.
We think this may refer to Hannah.
"The government should not be guided by temporary excitement but by sober second thought." 

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