The Death of Harrison Tyler

 

by Pa Rock

History Buff

Harrison Ruffin Tyler died  this past Sunday in Virginia at the age of ninety-six.  Mr Tyler was a retired chemical engineer who spent his post-work years helping to preserve historical sites.  Mr. Tyler's primary claim to fame, however, was the fact that he was the biological grandson of John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States.  

Grandfather Tyler was born in 1790 during George Washington's first term in office.  He was elected Vice President in 1840 while running on the Whig Party ticket that was headed by William Henry Harrison, a former General who had won fame as the commander of the Battle of Tippecanoe, an event which led to one of the more famous slogans in American presidential election history:  "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too."

Harrison was elderly (67, almost 68) when he was elected, and not in the best of health.  He gave the longest inauguration speech (up to that time) outside on a chilly day without an overcoat, hat, or gloves, developed pneumonia as a result of that experience, and died 31 days later.  The death of Harrison led John Tyler to become the first US Vice President to assume the office of President after the death of his predecessor.    Tyler served out the remaining 47 months of Harrison's term.

John Tyler had the most children of any President in US history, eight by his first wife and seven by his second.  One of the children that John Tyler had with his second wife was Lyon Gardiner Tyler, who was born in 1853 when the former President was sixty-three years old, and that child went on to become the father of Harrison Ruffin Tyler in 1928 when he was seventy-five.

Three generations of one family stretched from the 1st US Presidency to the 47th, almost the entire time that the nation has been in existence.   The Tylers, John, Lyle, and Harrison, comprised a very long thread in the fabric of America.