Grandson of 10th US President John Tyler, who left the White House 180 years ago, dead at 96
The grandson of the 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, has died at 96 — 180 years after his grandfather was last in the White House.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the son of President Tyler’s 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, died on Sunday evening at a Virginia nursing home, ending the last living link to an 18th-century presidential administration.
When he was born on Nov. 9, 1928, his father was 75 years old.
Having children into old age was a family trait, as President Tyler was 63 when Lyon was born.
President Tyler would go on to have two more children before he died in 1862 age 71.
Born into a prominent slaveholding Virginia family in 1790, John Tyler served as President William Henry Harrison’s vice president on the Whig ticket in 1840.
He became president after Harrison died just 31 days into his term.
While in office, Tyler was a believer in manifest destiny, and signed a bill offering Texas statehood shortly before leaving office.
But he fell out with the Whig Party, who chose not to nominate him for reelection, instead opting for Henry Clay, who lost to the Democrat James K. Polk.
He fathered more children than any other American president, including eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian, and seven with his second, Julia Gardiner, whom he married in 1844 — two years after Letitia died of a stroke.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler was a feature of curiosity from a young age due to his ties to America’s past.
At age 8, he was invited to the White House to meet FDR, and Lady Nancy Astor paid his $5,000 tuition fees at William & Mary College even though the two had never met.
He also had a historic lineage on the side of his mother, Susan Ruffin Tyler, and was a direct descendant of Pocahontas.
But despite that, he grew up poor during the Great Depression and, after graduating, he continued his education at Virginia Tech due to a lack of employment opportunities.
In 1968, he founded the industrial water treatment company ChemTreat with his business partner William P Simmons, serving top clients such as Kraft and Philip Morris.
In 1975, he bought his grandfather’s former home, Sherwood Forest Plantation, from relatives and restored it along with his wife, Francis Payne Bouknight Tylor.
The property is now open to the public and operated by a foundation.
It boasts not only “the longest frame house in America” but is also home to a ghost known as the Gray Lady, who visitors claim to have heard for over 200 years.
In 1996, Tyler bought and financed the preservation of Fort Pocahontas, a Civil War-era earthwork close to Sherwood Forest built by black Union soldiers.
In 2001, he donated thousands of papers and books, along with $5 million of his own money, to William & Mary’s history department, which was renamed in his honor in 2021, The Richmonder reported.
Tyler’s wife died in 2019, and he had been living in a nursing home in Richmond at the time of his death.
He is survived by three children and numerous grandchildren.
