TYLER, 10th, 1841-45

"Honest John" Tyler, a tall, thin man with a high-bridged nose and blue eyes, was kindly and of less than mediocre ability. His Presidency was rarely taken seriously in his time; opponents called him "His Accidency."

Tyler was the first Vice President to reach the White House through the death of a President. When he got the news he was on his knees shooting marbles with his children.

His first wife, Letitia, who mothered seven of his fifteen children, was an invalid and died in 1842. Priscilla Cooper Tyler, daughter-in-law of the President and a professional actress, assumed the position of White House hostess. Tyler did not endear himself to the country when two years after Letitia's death, at the age of fifty-four, he married Julia Gardiner, who was thirty years younger and whose father had been his friend. Her portrait was the first of a President's wife to be hung in the White House. Tyler is the only President to have had three different First Ladies during his time in office.

Tyler had several illegitimate children. His son, John Dunjee, was born a slave and became a prominent minister.

Tyler's favorite horse is buried at his Sherwood Forest Plantation with a gravestone that reads, "Here lies the body of my good horse 'The General'. For twenty years he bore me around the circuit of my practice and in all that time he never made me blunder. Would that his master could say the same."

When Tyler was President, Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message: "What hath God wrought?"

Tyler's final words were, "Perhaps it is best."

d. January 18, 1862 (Richmond, Virginia) at 71 of biliousness.