John Tyler

Basic Facts:
Birth: March 29, 1790 at Greenway Plantation, Charles City County, Virginia
Death: January 18, 1862 at Richmond, Virginia
Married: (1) Letitia Christian (1790-1842) on March 29, 1813; (2) Julia Gardner (1820-1889) on June 26, 1844
Children: (8 with Letitia) Mary, Robert, John, Letitia, Elizabeth, Alice, Tazewell, Anne;
(7 with Julia) David, John A, Julia, Lachlan, Lyon, Robert F, Pearl
President: One term beginning April 6, 1841

Family
Letitia Tyler

    with Letitia Christian (1790-1842)

  • Mary (1815–1848) married Henry Lightfoot Jones, a prosperous Tidewater planter, in 1835.
  • Robert (1816–1877) served as his father’s private secretary in the White House. He married Priscilla Cooper Tyler, an actress, who at the age of 24 assumed the position of White House hostess, and she served as official hostess at the White House during the first three years of the Tyler administration. As a leader of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, Robert Tyler promoted the career of James Buchanan. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he fled Philadelphia when an anti-southern mob attacked his home. He returned to Virginia, where he served as register of the Treasury of the Confederacy. Penniless after the war, he settled in Montgomery, Alabama, and there regained his fortunes as a lawyer, editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, and leader of the state Democratic Party.
  • John (1819–1896) Like his older brother, he also became a lawyer and served as private secretary to his father, campaigning for James Buchanan.
  • Letitia (1821–1907), an educator married James Semple, whom her father appointed a purser in the U.S. Navy, in 1839. The marriage was an unhappy one. At the close of the American Civil War, she left her husband to open a school, the Eclectic Institute, in Baltimore. After her mother’s death in 1842, and after her sister-in-law Priscilla (Robert’s wife) moved away, Letitia served her father as the White House social hostess, the title later known as First Lady.
  • Elizabeth (1823–1850) married William N. Waller at a White House wedding in 1842. She died from the effects of childbirth at the age of 27.
  • Anne (1825–1825)
  • Alice (1827–1854) married the Reverend Henry M. Denison, an Episcopal rector in Williamsburg, in 1850. She died suddenly of colic, also at the age of 27.
  • Tazewell (1830–1874) was a doctor who served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
    Julia Tyler
    with Julia Gardner (1820-1889)

  • David (1846-1927) was a U.S. Democratic Party politician. He was married to Mary Morris Jones (1865–1931). Together, they were the parents of five children, four of whom survived to adulthood
  • John Alexander (1848 – 1883) At age 14 he ran away from home to enlist in the Confederate States Army, but was rejected as too young. His mother, Julia Gardiner Tyler, eventually allowed him to join the Confederate States Navy because it had a lesser casualty rate than the Confederate Army. However, Tyler spent most of his time on a ship quarantined due to yellow fever and left naval service in 1864. After attending college for three months, he left and joined the First Virginia Battalion of Artillery under General Robert E. Lee, just prior to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, which effectively ended the war. President Rutherford B. Hayes later appointed him as a surveyor for the United States Department of the Interior. In 1883, at 35 years old, Tyler died of a fever while working as a mining engineer in New Mexico.
  • Julia (1849 – 1871) married William H. Spencer, a debt-ridden farmer in 1869. She died from the effects of childbirth at age 22
  • Lachlan (1851 – 1902), a doctor who practiced medicine in Jersey City, New Jersey, and in 1879 became a surgeon in the U.S. Navy.
  • Lyon (1853 – 1935), an American educator, genealogist, and historian.
  • Robert Fitzwalter “Fitz” (1856 – 1927), a farmer.
  • Pearl (1860 – 1947) at the age of 12 converted to Roman Catholicism along with her mother. She married William Munford Ellis, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

Other
John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States, died in Richmond, Va., at age 71. Tyler was the first Vice-President to ascend to the Presidency upon the death of the President, William Henry Harrison. He fathered more children than any other president – eight with his first wife and seven with his second wife. When Civil War broke out, Tyler sided with the Confederacy and his death was not officially recognized in Washington, D.C. His coffin was draped with the Confederate Flag.

Tyler was the first vice-president to become President due to the death of a president.
Tyler was the first president to have impeachment proceedings begun against him.
Tyler was the first president to have Congress override his veto.
Tyler was the first president whose wife died while he was in office. (Letitia)
Tyler was the first president to marry while in office. (Julia)
Tyler was the only president to hold office in the Confederacy; in November, 1861 he was elected a Virginia representative to the Confederate Congress.
Five years after leaving office, Tyler was so poor he was unable to pay a bill for $1.25 until he had sold his corn crop.
The tradition of playing “Hail to the Chief” whenever a president appears at state functions was started by Tyler’s second wife, Julia.
He was nicknamed “His Accidency” due to the way in which he assumed office.
According to the Census of 1840, the U. S. population was at 17 million people, including 14 million whites and 2.8 million blacks, free and slave

Letitia Tyler was the first “First Lady” to die in the White House.

Tyler was one of five Presidents who were never inaugurated.
Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation, is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. The main plantation house, built in 1730, was the home of President John Tyler (1790–1862) for the last twenty years of his life.

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Sources:
Internet Public Library
Sherwood Forest Plantation

Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.
Whitney, David C. The American Presidents. Doubleday, Garden City, 1969.