Tippecanoe and Tyler's Accidency, Too
Hello. It’s March 29, 2013. Among the notable events in American history on this date was the birth in 1790 of John Tyler, 10th president of the United States. The human footnote to the famous 1840 campaign slogan (“Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!”), Tyler assumed the presidency after William Henry Harrison died shortly after taking the oath of office.
For his troubles, he earned the wrath of Harrison’s fellow Whigs, and was derided by critics as “His Accidency.” Yet by acting so decisively, John Tyler essentially answered the Constitution’s ambiguity about succession.
A Virginian by birth and outlook, Tyler was a “states’ rights” man. He was gone from the White House by 1861, when the Civil War broke out, and he tried to broker a peace deal. But when that failed, he followed his state, not his country, and had been elected to serve in the Confederate Congress when he died in 1862. This is not the kind of move a president’s reputation can easily survive -- and Tyler’s hasn’t.
Yet his tenure as president was also a testament to the power of love – he was the first president to be married while in office – and his family life serves as a reminder of just how young a country the United States really is: two of John Tyler’s grandsons are still alive.
Love was the last thing John Tyler expected to come across his path as president. He had been married on Mary 29, 1813 – his 23rd birthday – to Letitia Christian. She had borne eight children, seven of whom survived, but she was virtually an invalid by the time Tyler took office.
Letitia Tyler died in September 1842. Months later, the widower met and was captivated, along with much of official Washington, by a visiting New York debutante named Julia Gardiner. The president was obviously still in mourning, not to mention 30 years Gardiner’s senior. But a year later, Tyler invited Julia, her father David, and many other dignitaries to an excursion along the Potomac aboard a Navy ship, the USS Princeton.
Amid the drinking and festivities, the frigate’s captain was persuaded to show off the ship’s armaments, which included a state-of-the-art cannon called “The Peacemaker.” But that day, it brought grief: the big gun exploded aboard the ship, killing six people and wounding another 20. Among the dead were two cabinet officers and Julia’s father.
“Joy is turned into mourning,” noted Tyler who, in less than two years had lost his president, his wife, and two close political allies.
But mourning eventually turned back into joy. Tyler comforted Julia Gardiner, courted her, and married her. She would serve as first lady for the last eight months of his presidency – and bear him another seven children. One of the couple’s sons, Lyon Gardner Tyler was born in 1853, when his father was 63 years old.
Like his father, Lyon Tyler lost his first wife and remarried a much younger woman. And he sired sons well into his 70s. Two of them, Lyon G. Tyler Jr., (born in 1924) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (born in 1928) are still alive.
Lyon Tyler attended William & Mary and then law school at the University of Virginia. He served in World War II, became a successful lawyer in Richmond, and later as Commonwealth’s Attorney. An appointment to Virginia’s Civil War centennial commission rekindled an interest in the past, and Lyon made a mid-career change, returning to college, getting a doctorate degree from Duke and taught history at the University of Richmond, VMI, and the Citadel.
His younger brother also went to William & Mary, then obtained a master’s degree in engineering from Virginia Tech. Harrison had a long career in the private sector and founded a successful water treatment company.
To this day, Harrison Tyler follows politics closely, and has been active in Republican politics in Virginia. In interviews, he has described Barack Obama “a charming man,” but finds the president’s lack of business experience telling.
In recent years, the tenor of political campaigning has left Harrison Tyler disenchanted. But he has no illusions that things were much better in his grandfather’s time. “Politics has always been like that,” he told Dan Amira last year. “Nothing new.”
