During a fund raising ceremony for the Washington Monument on July 4, 1850, Zachary Taylor ate copious amounts of raw fruit and local milk. He became gravely ill with a digestive aliment and died on July 9, 1850 at the age of 65. His exact cause of death is unknown. There are theories that he might've been poisoned. Although, a slaveholder from the South, he was against the expansion of slavery. An adamant Unionist, he was dead set against secession. He was viewed as a traitor by Southerners who advocated States' Rights.

An exhumation in 1991 ruled against poisoning as arsenic levels were too low. It was most likely he died from acute gastritis or cholera morgues. Washington D.C.'s open sewers were a likely cause in his death. However, some question the means of testing during the exhumation and argue that the possibility still exists, although no definite conclusive evidence supports the theory.

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