Van Lew died on September 25, 1900 (aged 81), and was buried in Richmond's Shockoe Hill Cemetery in the same grave as her beloved niece Eliza Van Lew, who had been her constant companion in her later years, and who had died just a few months before her. Elizabeth was purportedly buried vertically, facing the north; however, this is highly unlikely, as Cemetery records do not reflect that circumstance, and such a burial would have been unnecessary as multiple persons were often buried in a common grave shaft in that era. Relatives of Union Colonel Paul J. Revere, whom she had aided during the war, donated the tombstone.