For most Americans, the Vice President doesn’t usually get much attention. It should come as no surprise that their deaths don’t get the same recognition as the president’s they serve under.

While most of us know the likes of John Kennedy, Warren Harding and William McKinley for their tragic deaths whilst serving as president, the following entries are those VP’s who died while on the job.

George Clinton

George Clinton was a founding father who fought during the Revolutionary War. He served as America’s first Governor of New York. He was admired by many. His admiration led him to run for president in 1796, but he lost.

In 1804, then president Thomas Jefferson ran for re-election. He needed a new running mate. His previous one, Aaron Burr, was embroiled in scandal. A certain duel with Alexander Hamilton made the news.

Thanks to his popularity and major influence within New York politics, Clinton was selected as Jefferson’s running mate. The pair easily won the election with 162 out of 176 votes and 73% of the popular vote.

Jefferson soon persuaded his friend and Secretary of State, James Madison to run for the presidency in 1808. The thing is though…Clinton was also vying for the nomination after a group of New York delegates pushed him to run.

Madison would end up winning the nomination and the White House as a whole, but George Clinton (who ended up winning six electoral votes in this election) was still the VP thus making him the first person to served under two different president’s during his tenure.

Sadly Clinton wouldn’t live to see the end of his term or even make a third run for the Presidency. He died at the age of 72 from a heart attack on April 20th 1812 making him the first Vice President to die in office.

Elbridge Gerry

It’s believed that had he lived, many New Yorkers would’ve pushed George Clinton to run for the presidency again in 1812, but when he died those same supporters turned to George’s nephew and Mayor of New York City (DeWitt Clinton) to challenge Madison in the election of 1812.

When Democratic Republicans met at their nominating caucus, Madison was able to clinch the nomination but needed a new running mate. At first John Langdon, who was the Governor of New Hampshire appeared to be the guy to run with Madison, but Langdon refused on account of his age as he was in his early 70’s.

Another vote was held to determine Madison’s running mate and the decision was made to have Massachusetts Governor, Elbridge Gerry be the man to fill that spot.

Much like George Clinton, Gerry was another Founding Father who served in politics and was selected with the belief that he would pose no threat as a presidential candidate four years later (an idea Thomas Jefferson had when Clinton became his running mate back in 1804).

Following Madison’s victory in the general election, Gerry’s time as Vice President would be uneventful and short lived as he passed away from a heart attack on November 23rd 1814 at the age of 70.

For comparison, John Langdon (the man who passed on being the VP because of his old age) would live to be 78 years old when he died in September of 1819.

William Rufus King

Following this, the VP’s that came before and afterwards would only pass away mere months if not years after leaving their position with the next Vice President to die while in office happening almost four decades later.

Before serving as the 13th Vice President and the rumored love interest of future president James Buchanan, William Rufus DeVane King was the former Minister to France under James Polk and the U.S. Senator of Alabama by the 1850’s

With the presidential election of 1852 just around the corner, the Democrats were struggling to find a candidate to run until they went with Franklin Pierce, a former U.S. Representative and Senator from New Hampshire; Despite his sympathies towards the Southern wing of his party, it took the inclusion of William King as the running mate in order to sway most Southerners with King famously proclaiming that Pierce was:

“A Northern Man with Southern Principles.”

The only main opposition to the Democrats were the Whig Party, but by the 1850’s that group was falling apart and come election day, Pierce and King beat the Whigs in a landslide victory; Unfortunately, Pierce’s presidency would be filled with tragedy and death as not only was his last surviving son killed in a train accident months before Franklin was to be sworn in, but his Vice President would end up dying before he even took on his new responsibilities.

King, who was suffering from tuberculosis for many years, was actually in Cuba during the election in order to regain his health. Congress soon passed an act which allowed William to become the first and only person to be sworn in as VP whilst out of the country.

Sadly King would end up succumbing to the disease no less than 45 days after becoming the Vice President and he passed away on April 16th 1853 at the age of 67.

Henry Wilson

Heading into the 1872 Republican National Convention there was little doubt that Military General and incumbent president, Ulysses Grant was going to get the nomination; The big issue heading into the convention however was determining who would be Grant’s running mate.

Several names stood out with the top two being Henry Wilson, a well known Senator from Massachusetts and Schuyler Colfax, the former Speaker of the House turned Vice President after he and Grant won the presidential election four years earlier.

Initially, Colfax declined to run for re-election as he wanted to be the party’s presidential candidate in 1872, however due to Colfax’s hubris, alleged connections with the Liberal Republican Party (Grant’s opposition in the election) and later being caught up in corruption charges with the railroad companies, saw the VP losing his chance to stay on the ticket thus paving the way for Wilson to be Grant’s running mate.

The Grant-Wilson ticket easily defeated the Liberal Republicans in the electoral and popular vote, making Henry Wilson America’s 18th Vice President. As a fierce anti-slavery supporter for most of his career, Wilson was more than happy to get pass pieces of legislation that would support African Americans as seen with the Vice President ending a tie breaking vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Tragically for Wilson, he would suffer from multiple strokes during his time as Vice President with his last occurring on November 22nd 1875 when he died at the age of 63.

Thomas Hendricks

Although the Democratic Party would spend most of the post Civil War Era losing presidential elections, there was one name that the majority of Democrats unanimously supported and that was Indiana native, Thomas Andrew Hendricks.

In the aforementioned 1872 election, Hendricks was one of several names to get electoral votes after Horace Greeley (the Liberal Republican presidential candidate) died before the votes could officially be certified by Congress.

In the 1876 election, Hendricks (who was the Governor of Indiana) was selected to be the running mate for New York Governor Samuel Tilden, but the duo lost in what will go down as one of the closest and most controversial elections in U.S. History.

Democrats attempted to run Hendricks again as the party’s Vice Presidential pick in 1880, but he refused due to health concerns that would continue to plague him for the rest of his life. Still, the Democrats continued to back Hendricks which is why he unanimously became Grover Cleveland’s running mate in the election of 1884 with the two of them emerging victorious.

There’s very little to say about Hendrick’s time as VP. His ill health and the role of the Vice President didn’t allow him to do much. He didn’t live long enough to get anything done in that role anyway. He died from a heart attack on November 25th, 1885, at the age of 66, just eight months into his term.

Garret Hobart

After working his way up in New Jersey politics and becoming lawyer before that, Garret Hobart looked a like a rising star in the Republican Party thanks to his skills as a legislator and his connections with the business community.

When the GOP had it’s nominating convention in 1896, Hobart had to battle the likes of Levi Morton. Morton was the Governor of New York and former VP for Benjamin Harrison. Hobart wanted to be the running mate for Ohio Governor William McKinley. With the help of campaign manager Mark Hanna, the McKinley-Hobart ticket won 271 out of 447 electoral votes.

After studying and preparing himself for his new position, Hobart transcended his role as Vice President into becoming a very influential advisor for McKinley when it came to the Senate’s decision to go to war with Spain as well as using his powers as VP to ratify a treaty that ended the conflict following America’s victory in the Philippines but also refused to support an amendment that would give the filipinos their right to self governance.

Sadly for Hobart, he wouldn’t live long enough to stand for a second term as heart complications and a nasty case of the flu would see his health rapidly decline and he passed away on November 21st 1899 at the age of 55, making him the youngest of the VP’s we’ve mentioned to die while in office.

Hobart’s death might be the most impactful as the next person to fill his spot as Vice President was Theodore Roosevelt after he and McKinley won the next presidential election, however the president would die from an assassination attempt in September of 1901 leading to Roosevelt becoming the new commander-in-chief and with that…American politics would never be the same again.

James Sherman

In 1908, William Howard Taft (the Secretary of War and Theodore Roosevelt’s pick for president) was able to secure the nomination in spite of many delegates in the convention hall clamouring for Roosevelt for nearly fifty minutes.

Taft’s running mate would be U.S. Representative of New York, James Schoolcraft Sherman who is related to famous Union Army General, William Tecumseh Sherman and Former Senator of Connecticut, Roger Sherman. While James leaned more conservative at a time when the Republican Party was getting more and more progressive, he was able to get the nomination thanks to future Vice President Charles Curtis putting his name into contention as a way to balance out the ticket.

After winning the election of 1908, Sherman’s time as Vice President was unremarkable, that said he does hold the honor of being the first VP to fly in an airplane in 1911 and is the first VP in recorded history to throw a ceremonial first pitch during a baseball game.

Come the 1912 presidential election, Sherman was re-nominated which made him the first Vice President to do so since John Calhoun all the way back in 1828, but due to suffering from a kidney infection called Bright’s Disease since 1904, Sherman’s health was deteriorating and fast.

On October 30th 1912, Sherman (who just turned 57 years old a few days earlier) would die in his New York home a little over a week before election day. Sherman’s passing not only saw Nicholas Butler (President of Columbia University) being substituted as the running mate, but it also makes James Sherman the most recent Vice President to die while in office.

Overall, there have been seven Vice Presidents who have died while in office with two of them being Democratic Republicans, two were Democrats and three of them were Republicans with the majority of these VP’s passing away due to heart problems or contracting an illness prior to becoming Vice President.

Although many VP’s since 1912 have had some health problems during their tenure, none of them have died while serving as second-in-command…And let’s hope that doesn’t change anytime soon.

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