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Here is this week's RED, WHITE & TRUE MYSTERIES story ...

Man born 222 years ago has 2 grandsons still living

While the name of John Tyler may not ring a bell with you, I bet you’ve heard of him. He was born in 1790 in Charles City County, Virginia. He had 15 kids; eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian Tyler, and the other seven with his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler.

John Tyler was a lawyer, state legislator, governor, United States representative and United States senator. He played a major role in the annexation of Texas in 1845. 

The surprising thing about John Tyler is that he has two grandsons who are still alive today – despite the fact that he died 150 years ago in 1862! 

How is this possible, you ask? 

John and Julia’s fifth child, Lyon Tyler, was born in 1853, when John Tyler was 63 years old. Lyon and his second wife, Sue, had three sons, including Lyon, Jr., who was born in 1924, and Harrison, who was born in 1928. They are both still alive today. 

Harrison has the same name as that of his grandfather’s boss. John Tyler took over for his boss when he died of complications from pneumonia in 1841, just 32 days after he started his new job. So who was John Tyler? 

He was the 10^th president of the United States. His boss was William Henry Harrison, the 9^th president of the United States. President Harrison caught pneumonia after standing out in the cold while giving a two-hour inauguration speech. 

President John Tyler is remembered in history for several firsts. For example, he was the first U.S. president to be married in office, and he was the first and only U.S. president whose death was not mourned. This is because he opposed the Union prior to the Civil War. He was also the first U.S. president to assume office due to the death of a sitting president.  

The next six presidents who were elected in subsequent 20-year intervals all died in office. They were:  

      ·        Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860: Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday in 1865.
·        James A. Garfield, elected in 1880: Assassinated in 1881, less than three months after he was elected president.
·        William McKinley, elected in 1900: Assassinated in 1901, less than a year into his second term as President.  
·        Warren G. Harding, elected in 1920. President Harding broke tradition and died from a stroke instead of being assassinated.
·        Franklin Delano Roosevelt, re-elected in 1940. He died during his fourth term, in 1945, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
·        John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.  

When Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, he ended what had become known as “Tecumseh’s Curse.” In case you’re wondering, Tecumseh was the Indian leader whose troops were defeated by William Henry Harrison 30 years before he became president, during the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.

President Harrison and Vice President Tyler ran on the campaign slogan of: “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” And who was it that wrote President Harrison’s two-hour speech – the one that literally cost him his life?

None other than Daniel Webster, who would have become president on two separate occasions if he had been willing to accept the vice presidency position that he had been offered – twice. Harrison offered him the position as his running mate in 1840 and so did our 12^th president, Zachary Taylor, in 1848.

He turned down both future presidents. Since both presidents would later die in office, Webster would have become president if he had accepted the position of vice president.

But this story is not over yet … there’s one more interesting point: John Tyler was descended from Pocahontas. So was President Thomas Jefferson’s son-in-law, Thomas Randolph, Jr., and also President Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith.

Now the story is officially over.

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Paul Niemann can be reached at niemann7@aol.com

© Paul Niemann 2012

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