Predisdents and Progeny
There are five Presidents who never produced biological children. George Washington, James Madison, James K. Polk, James Buchanan (our only bachelor President and only openly gay President) and Andrew Jackson. Warren G. Harding had no children in wedlock but did father a daughter prior to becoming President.
There are also several Presidential blood lines that have been ended. Those are Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, Chester A. Arthur and William McKinley.
Other lines, like those of John Adams, both Roosevelts and John Tyler seem to go on forever and that leads me to a fascinating story.
On August 30, 2018 a ninety-three-year-old man, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., walked into the White House. Lyon’s grandfather was President John Tyler, 10th President of the United States. Lyon is the grandson of a man who was President 180 years ago!
John Tyler was Vice President under William Henry Harrison in the 1840 election. Harrison died one month into his Presidency after delivering the longest inaugural address in history during a cold, pouring rain.
Shortly into his Presidency, John Tyler’s first wife, Leticia (nee Christian) Tyler, died of very natural causes. Leticia had given John 8 children and he mourned her passing. But he also, as was typical for the time, took a much younger wife two years later. Julia Gardiner Tyler, his second wife, gave John 7 more children for a total of 15, setting the record for Presidential children.
President Tyler was 63, and long since out of office, when his youngest son, Lyon Tyler, was born.
When Lyon’s first wife died, he (like his father before him) also took a second wife some 35 years his junior. Lyon then continued to outdo his famous father by producing his final child in his 70’s. It is that son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. who took part in a gathering of children and descendants of our Presidents sponsored by the White House Historical Association in 2018.
President Tyler’s second wife, Julia Tyler, is an interesting person. She was 24 years old when she became First Lady, marrying a man 30 years older than she. She first met President Tyler on a steamship ride on the Potomac. On that fateful trip her father was killed in the explosion of a cannon being fired on deck. Her subsequent marriage occurred during the official mourning period. She was the first Presidential wife to be photographed and her photo shows her to be much lovelier than her portraits indicate. She is also the first Lady to use the press to cultivate her celebrity.
So here we have all the ingredients of television drama: old, powerful men marrying younger women; death, both slowly tragic and suddenly violent; a feisty young wife who chooses to manipulate the world that tries to control her; a dynasty and the making of a nation. But before you start writing the screen play you must also know this; John Tyler was a thoroughly forgettable President. He was ordinary by every definition of the word. Two decades later, both Tyler and his wife supported the Confederacy during the Civil War, putting them squarely on the wrong side of history.
Yet their story is intriguing. We have had 45 Presidents and I have read biographies of almost half of them. Good or bad, they all have a story that captivates, that instructs, and that tells us much about ourselves simply by how we react to them.
I can also tell you, after years of research on my latest book about the deceased wives of Presidents, that if you think the men are interesting, try looking at the women.
On President’s Day, why not try to find a good book about a President—any President—and find out a little about them, you and our history.
Keep the faith.
Comments