What first got my attention was that this is the only grave of a President or Vice President in Alabama. Then I learned that he was the only one of that group who took his oath of office overseas, and that he died about four weeks after taking the oath of office. I was also curious why he would be buried in Selma. Apparently he bought land in the Alabama Territory as it was opened to American settlers, and he chose a spot near the Alabama River, which was a major transportation route in the early 1800s. As it turned out, his plantation was not far from the first state capital in Cahaba (1819 - 1826).
During his life, he served the United States in the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as on foreign missions. He experienced worsening health after the 1852 election and went to an estate near Havana, Cuba, to see if he could recover. When it appeared he was too ill to return to Washington, DC, Congress passed special legislation allowing the American Consul to swear King in as Vice President. King thus became the first, and only, Vice President to take his oath of office in a foreign country.
In the end, he wanted to die at home, so he sailed from Cuba to Mobile and then to his plantation. He arrived the day before he died. He was buried at the family cemetery at Chesnut Hill. The body was moved from his plantation at Chesnutt Hill to Selma in 1882, after the city built the marble mausoleum.
The mausoleum is located on King Street, just off of Dallas Avenue (Alabama Hwy 22), in Selma. The Live Oak Cemetery address is 300 Dallas Avenue in Selma, Alabama.
The stone over the mausoleum door reads:
Hon William R. King
Vice President of the United States
Died 18th April, 1853, Ages 67 years
and 11 Days
The following brief summary of his life comes from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress:
"KING, William Rufus de Vane, a Representative from North Carolina, a Senator from Alabama, and a Vice President of the United States; born in Sampson County, N.C., April 7, 1786; attended private schools; graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1803; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1806 and commenced practice in Clinton, N.C.; member, State house of commons 1807-1809; city solicitor of Wilmington, N.C., 1810; elected to the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Congresses and served from March 4, 1811, until November 4, 1816, when he resigned; secretary of the legation at Naples and later at St. Petersburg; returned to the United States in 1818 and located in Cahaba, Ala.; planter; delegate to the convention which organized the State government; upon the admission of Alabama as a State into the Union in 1819 was elected as a Democratic Republican to the United States Senate; reelected as a Democratic Republican and as a Jacksonian in 1822, 1828, 1834, and 1841, and served from December 14, 1819, until April 15, 1844, when he resigned; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Twenty-fourth through Twenty-seventh Congresses; chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Twenty-second Congress), Committee on Commerce (Twenty-second, Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses); Minister to France 1844-1846; appointed and subsequently elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Arthur P. Bagby and served from July 1, 1848, until his resignation on December 20, 1852, due to poor health; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses; chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations (Thirty-first Congress), Committee on Pensions (Thirty-first Congress); elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Pierce in 1852 and took the oath of office March 24, 1853, in Havana, Cuba, where he had gone for his health, which was a privilege extended by special act of Congress; returned to his plantation, “King’s Bend,” Alabama, and died there April 18, 1853; interment in a vault on his plantation; reinterment in Live Oak Cemetery, Selma, Dallas County, Ala." source: (
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There are several sites with much more detailed information about the life of William King. Some of them follow:
Alabama Department of Archives and History: (
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Encyclopedia of Alabama: (
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United States Senate: (
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Alabama Heritage Magazine: (
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