2026 SESSION
ENROLLED
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 47
Designating May 21, in 2026 and in each succeeding year, as Eliza Kortright Monroe Hay Day in Virginia.
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 11, 2026
Agreed to by the Senate, March 3, 2026
WHEREAS, James and Elizabeth Kortright Monroe welcomed their firstborn child, Elizabeth "Eliza" Kortright Monroe, at Spring Hill in King George County in December 1786; and
WHEREAS, Eliza Monroe spent the first years of her life in Fredericksburg, then moved to Albemarle County with her family in 1788; and
WHEREAS, over the course of James Monroe's career as a diplomat, Eliza Monroe lived in Great Britain, Spain, and France, where she was educated in a prestigious boarding school in Paris founded by Henriette Campan; and
WHEREAS, Eliza Monroe married George Hay, a Virginia district attorney, on September 28, 1808, and the couple resided near Richmond; and
WHEREAS, after James Monroe took office as the fifth president of the United States in 1817, Eliza Monroe Hay and her family moved into the White House and assisted with maintaining the presidential household due to her mother's declining health; and