Tennessee Historical Commission Calls Polk Exhumation Proposal 'Inappropriate'

NASHVILLE, TN — Calling the proposal "inappropriate," the Tennessee Historical Commission sent a letter opposing the removal of President James K. Polk and First Lady Sarah Childress Polk from the grounds of the State Capitol to the grounds of the Polk Home in Columbia.

Patrick McIntyre, THC Executive Director, said moving the bodies would "create a false sense of history" at the home in Columbia in violation of the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, the guiding principles that drive historic preservation nationwide.

"Moving the tomb some 50 miles and placing it within or adjacent to the National Historic Landmark setting at the Polk Home would take away a historic element from the Capitol grounds and falsely change the historic setting around the Polk home," he wrote in a letter to John Holzapple, executive director of the James K. Polk Memorial Association, which is leading the relocation effort that got the statutorily required approval of the State Senate last week.

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The letter also notes that the THC purchased property adjacent to the Polk Home in 2013-14 which is now proposed as the new gravesite, though that was not the reason the THC paid for it, and that the THC has been unable to find an example of a president and first lady being exhumed "after more than a century of peaceful repose."

The letter also gently chastises the Polk Memorial Association for filing the required waiver request under the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. Under THPA, the removal or relocation of a memorial or monument requires the approval of the historical commission; however, the THPA requires that the organization controlling the memorial or monument request that waiver. The Polk tomb is under the jurisdiction of the State Capitol Commission, not the Polk Memorial Association.

"In conclusion, while this office was previously apprised of the effort, it was only via a public notice in the newspaper that we became aware that this had become an official, endorsed project of the James K. Polk Memorial Association. Regrettably, there was no communication with our office prior to that development," McIntyre wrote. "Given that this proposal is inappropriate ... and that our agency will continue to oppose it, it is our recommendation to the Association that you suspend this initiative."

Image via Flickr user Brent Moore, used under Creative Commons