HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN TYLER!

Happy birthday to you, John Tyler!

John who?

John Tyler, our 10th President of the United States, that’s who! Yeah, I didn’t recognize his name at first either. He’s one of the least remembered presidents, even though he had a number of “firsts” in office.

He ran as William Henry Harrrison’s running mate with the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” Harrison got the nickname “Old Tippecanoe” for his great leadership during the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Poor John Tyler seems like an add-on. Yay for Tippecanoe, and, oh, yeah, Tyler, too!

Harrison won the election and became our 9th President. His inauguration was on March 4, 1841, and was a cold and wet day. Harrison chose not to wear a coat or a hat, rode to his inauguration on horseback, and delivered the longest inaugural speech in history (8,445 words and nearly two hours long!). Then he once again chose not to wear a coat on March 24, 1841, when he went on his daily morning walk and was caught in a rainstorm. He didn’t change out of his wet clothes once he was back inside the White House. The next day, he had cold-like symptoms which had worsened by the weekend. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and died on April 4, 1841, exactly one month after officially becoming President.

His First “First”
No one was certain if the vice president would just assume the duties of the president after his death or if the vice president would actually become the next president. Tyler didn’t wait to find out the answer. He took the oath of office on April 6, 1841, and became our 10th President. This was the first time a vice president had ascended to the highest office of the land through the death of a president.

Tyler’s Second “First”
The Constitution did not provide a way to replace a vice president, leaving it up to interpretation. President Tyler chose not to appoint a vice president and so became the first president to serve without one.

President Tyler’s Third “First”
President Tyler riled up the Whigs, his own political party, as he tried to set policy that went against the Whigs’ plans. Most of his cabinet resigned in protest shortly after Tyler’s term of office began and he was expelled from the Whig party. That was the first time a political party had expelled a member who was also the president. The Whigs nicknamed him, “His Accidency.”

His Fourth “First”
Tyler vetoed a piece of legislation, and normally that would be the end of it, but Congress rebelled. So John Tyler became the first president to have his veto overturned by Congress. It’s extremely hard to override a presidential veto. It takes ⅔ of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to vote to overturn it.

Tyler’s Fifth “First”
John Tyler was also the first president to get married while in office. His first wife was Letitia Christian Tyler who died of a stroke on September 10, 1842. They had seven children together. Tyler then married Julia Gardiner on June 26, 1844, and they had eight children.

Fun Facts
Tyler’s second wife, Julia (born 1820) was five years younger than his oldest daughter Mary (born 1815).
With 15 children, Tyler had more children than any other US president.
Tyler’s youngest daughter, Margaret Pearl was born in 1860 and died in 1947, 157 years after her father’s birth.
Leon Tyler (born 1853), John’s second youngest son, also remarried a much younger woman and fathered a son, Harrison Ruffin Tyler in 1928.
Harrison Tyler, President John Tyler’s grandson, is still alive today at age 96! Can you imagine being able to claim today that your grandfather was the 10th president of the USA?