Posted on 01/18/2005 11:55:32 AM PST by PeaRidge
If you have visited the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, you know that it is called the Arlington of the Confederacy due to the fact that many famous Confederate people are buried there. Upon entering the cemetery, one finds Confederate President Jefferson Davis first. Then you drive to what is called on the map as President's Circle. In the middle is James Monroe.
A few yards away is John Tyler. Aside from these two presidents, there are 26 Confederate generals buried here. Among the more famous are JEB Stuart, George Pickett, Henry Heth and Fitzhugh Lee.
John Tyler was an interesting person. He was the first vice-president to be elevated to the presidency when the sitting president died. He was the only president to switch parties while he was in office. He also was the only president to get elected to the Confederate Congress.
Tyler was born on a plantation in Virginia. He became the 6th Virginia born president. He went to the College of William and Mary (like Jefferson and Monroe). He was the son of the Governor of Virginia. He was a natural for politics, which he entered in 1811. He was elected Governor of Virginia himself in 1825.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1827 and switched parties. Now a Whig, he became William Henry Harrison's running-mate for the 1840 presidential election. He was the "Tyler" in "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too". They easily defeated the unpopular Martin Van Buren.
One month into his presidency, Harrison died. Tyler, who was at home in Virginia did not even know Harrison was sick. On a Sunday morning, in April of 1841, a messenger came to his home in Williamsburg, Virginia to inform him that the president was dead. This started a major controversy, since he was the first vice president to become president.
A southern slaveowner, he was not seen as being presidential enough. Also, no one seemed to know if he was the president or the acting president. John Quincy Adams referred to him as "His Accidency". His cabinet, inherited from Harrison, told him that they had to approve everything he did. Tyler stood up to them and everyone else, feeling he was the president, just as if he was elected. The cabinet backed down as did everyone else and Tyler was sworn in as president three days later.
In 1842, while he was president, his wife Letitia, who had already suffered a stroke, died. Tyler was the first president to become a widower while in office. Within months, he was remarried to Julia Gardiner, who was 30 years younger than him. This marriage produced seven kids, to go along with the seven from his first wife. Tyler was easily our most prolific president. Incidentally, it was his wife Julia that started the tradition of playing "Hail to the Chief".
As a Whig president, Tyler got into trouble with his own party when he started going against many of their plans. A stubborn and uncompromising man, he was called a traitor to the Whig Party. Within six months, all but one of Tyler's cabinet members resigned in protest. Prominent Whig politicians Henry Clay and Daniel Webster even introduced Impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, which went no where.
Of course, at the end of his term, he was not nominated for re-election. He left Washington D.C. for his plantation "Sherwood Forest".
After the White House, Tyler stayed involved in politics in Virginia. In 1861, after Virginia seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. He moved into a Richmond (the Confederate capitol) hotel in early January.
On January 12, after his wife joined him he became sick and collapsed in the hotel dinning room. The doctors diagnosed him as suffering from bronchitis and a liver disorder. He planned to return to his Virginia plantation, but died the night before.
He never got the chance to serve in the Confederate Congress.
Tyler's body lay in state in the Confederate Congress draped with a Confederate flag. His funeral was in St. Paul's Episcopal Church and a large procession (around 150 carriages), which included Confederate President Jefferson Davis, escorted him to Hollywood Cemetery. Ironically, he was buried right next to President James Monroe who was a staunch Federalist.
Considered a traitor by many in Washington D.C., his death was officially ignored. It wouldn't be until the 20th Century when an official marker was placed on his grave by Congress.
John Tyler
Born: March 29, 1790 in Greenway, Virginia Served: April 6, 1841 - March 3, 1845 Died: January 18, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia Buried: Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia
James Monroe was an Anti-Federalist in 1788 as a delegate to the Virginia convention which debated ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and was later a Jeffersonian Republican. He became President by defeating the Federalist candidate, Rufus King, in 1816.
free dixie,sw
That is a line that could easily be delivered today on your average cable show. Nice.
President Tyler had 14 kids, the way I read that article. I see he had an appetite that seems to be a common one in the White House ;)
And down the street from Tyler's house is Berkeley Plantation, birthplace of William Henry Harrison. Berkeley Plantation was the place where TAPS was written during the Civil War. It is also said to be the site where slavery was introduced in the New World. It is a place loaded with history.
Richmond, March 1 -- Ex-President Tyler and Mr. Seldon, late Commissioners to the Washington Peace Conference, arrived in this city, on their way home, yesterday afternoon, and in the evening were honored with a serenade. Ex-President Tyler, in returning his thanks, said the South had nothing to hope from the Black Republicans. The secession feeling is on the increase. (Mar 2, 1861 Daily Picayune of New Orleans)
We visited Hollywood Cemetery for the first time about a year ago. The hurricane had just been through a month or two earlier and there were trees down everywhere in the cemetery. Big place. We found Jefferson Davis' grave and JEB Stuart's.
Berkeley Plantation was also where the first annual Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in America in December, 1619.
And husband says that most importantly, Berkeley Plantation was the birthplace of bourbon.
It's funny that you wrote me this msg. on 01/18/05 b/c yesterday was MY birthday!
What a co-inky-dink!
oh my. don't you know that there is no such think as a coinkydink???
Well, happy birthday! I really had no idea. Well, I have been to the birthplace of bourbon and bourbon.
Take one of those "well"s out of my last post.
Coinkydinkally, my grandmother was also born on January 18.
Bump for a great President.
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