The first U.S. citizen born - and buried - in Russia
The first U.S. citizen born in Russia and the first to be buried in Russia turned out to be the same person. It was Louise Catherine Adams, the one-year-old daughter of John Quincy Adams, the sixth American president.
From 1809 to 1814, Adams served as U.S. envoy plenipotentiary to St. Petersburg. There, the diplomat and his wife Louise gave birth to their only daughter on August 12, 1811. Unfortunately, only 13 months later, on September 15, 1812, she died of dysentery.
“We have lost our dear and only daughter… as lovely and promising a child, as ever was taken from the hopes of the fondest parent. She had been until a full year old in general healthier than any of our other children were at the same period of their lives. She had already six teeth. <…> The illness began by a violent Dysentery, which was succeeded by a nervous fever, and terminated with Convulsions. She died at half past One O’Clock on Tuesday Morning the 15th,” Adams wrote to his mother.
The girl was buried at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery. Over time, the grave was lost. The burial site was searched for from the 1990s to 2009. Once found again, the tombstone was restored with funds from the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. On the 200th anniversary of the girl’s death, on September 15, 2012, a memorial ceremony was held at the cemetery.
