Julia Tyler (née Gardiner; May
4, 1820 – July 10, 1889) was the first lady of the United States
from June 26, 1844, to March 4, 1845 as the second wife of President
John Tyler. A member of the influential Gardiner family, she became a
prominent socialite early in life that received many notable figures
as suitors. She met the recently-widowed President Tyler in 1842, and
she agreed to marry him after he comforted her during her father's
death. They married in secret, and she became first lady immediately
upon their marriage, serving in the role for the final eight months
of his presidency.
Tyler was delighted with her role as
first lady, redecorating the White House and establishing her own
"court" of ladies-in-waiting to mimic the practices of
European monarchies that she had visited years before. She also
established the tradition of playing "Hail to the Chief"
when the president arrived at an event, and she popularized the waltz
and polka dances in the United States. Tyler was a fierce advocate
for her husband's political priorities, organizing social events to
lobby Congressmen, particularly for the Texas annexation. She is
credited with revitalizing the position of first lady, both socially
and politically, after several inactive first ladies before her.
After leaving the White House, Tyler
moved to the Sherwood Forest Plantation in Virginia with her husband
and had seven children. She became a prominent supporter of slavery
in the United States, writing an influential pamphlet in 1853 that
defended the practice. During the American Civil War, she provided
support to the Confederate States of America, creating a permanent
rift with her family in New York. After the war, she was involved in
a legal dispute regarding her mother's estate with her brother, who
had been a loyal Unionist. Tyler returned to Washington in the 1870s
as her reputation recovered, assisting first lady Julia Grant at the
White House and lobbying Congress to provide a pension for first
ladies. She spent her final years in Richmond, Virginia, where she
lived in poor health with little money. She died on July 10, 1889 in
the same hotel where her husband had died 27 years before.
Early life
Julia Gardiner Tyler was born on May 4,
1820 on New York's Gardiner's Island, one of the largest privately
owned islands in the United States. She was the daughter of David
Gardiner, a landowner and New York State Senator (1824–1828), and
Juliana MacLachlan Gardiner. Her ancestry was Dutch, Scottish, and
English, and she was the third of four children. The Gardiners were a
wealthy and influential family, and she was taught to value social
class and advantageous marriages. She was raised in the town of
East Hampton and the small hamlet of Bay Shore. She was educated at
home until she was 16 years old, and she then attended the
Chagaray Institute in New York where she studied music, French
literature, ancient history, arithmetic, and composition.
As a young woman Gardiner was a budding
socialite, closely following fashion trends and courting potential
suitors. She was introduced in Saratoga Springs, New York at
the age of 15. In 1839, she shocked polite society by appearing in
a newspaper advertisement for a middle-class department store, posed
with an unidentified man and identified as "The Rose of Long
Island". Her family took her to Europe, possibly to avoid
further publicity, while the nickname "Rose of Long Island"
became permanently associated with Gardiner. They first left for
London, arriving on October 29, 1840. They visited England, France,
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, and Scotland
before returning to New York in September 1841. While in France, she
was presented to the French court, adding to her list of suitors.
After returning from Europe, the Gardiners spent time in Washington,
D.C.
Courtship and wedding
Courtship with President Tyler
In Washington, Gardiner and her sister
Margaret would accumulate so many suitors that an extra room had to
be rented to entertain them. She would continue to make visits to
Washington over the following years. She received marriage proposals
from several prominent figures, including two congressman and a
Supreme Court justice. She would also receive such proposals from
President John Tyler.
She first met Tyler on January 20,
1842, when she was 21 years old, being introduced to him at a White
House reception. On Gardiner's request, her family spent more time
in Washington, returning in 1843. President Tyler invited Gardiner to
a private game of cards on February 7, 1843, after which he playfully
chased her around the tables. After the death of his first wife,
Letitia Christian Tyler, Tyler made it clear that he wished to be
romantically involved with Gardiner. Initially, the high-spirited and
independent-minded northern beauty felt little attraction to the
grave, reserved Virginia gentleman, who was thirty years her senior,
though the Gardiners and the Tylers would grow close. The
increased time that Gardiner and President Tyler spent together
prompted public speculation about their relationship. Tyler first
proposed to her at a White House Masquerade Ball on February 22,
1843, when she was 22 years old. She refused that and later proposals
he made, though they reached an understanding by the following month
that they would someday be wed.
On February 22, 1844, Gardiner, her
sister Margaret, and her father joined a presidential excursion on
the new steam frigate Princeton. During this excursion, her
father, David Gardiner, along with others, lost his life in the
explosion of a huge naval gun called the Peacemaker. Gardiner is said
to have fainted after learning of her father's death, having
President Tyler carry her off of the ship. Gardiner was devastated
by the death of her father; she spoke often in later years of how the
president's quiet strength sustained her during this difficult time.
Tyler comforted Gardiner in her grief and won her consent to a secret
engagement, proposing in 1844 at the George Washington Ball. While
she grieved for her father, even Gardiner acknowledged that the
president had become a surrogate father.
Wedding of Julia Gardiner and John
Tyler
Because of the circumstances
surrounding her father's death, the marriage took place with a
minimum of celebration. On June 26, 1844, the President slipped into
New York City, where the nuptials were performed by Benjamin
Treadwell Onderdonk at the Church of the Ascension, not too far from
the Gardiner's residence on LaGrange Terrace. President Tyler was 54
years old, while Gardiner was 24. Tyler's oldest daughter, Mary, was
5 years older than her father's new wife. The marriage made Gardiner
the first first lady to marry a president who was already in office
at the time of the wedding.
The bride's sister, Margaret, and
brother, Alexander, were bridesmaid and best man. Only the
president's son, John Tyler III, represented the groom's family.
Tyler was so concerned about maintaining secrecy that he did not
confide his plans to the rest of his children. The news was then
broken to the American people, who greeted it with keen interest,
much publicity, and some criticism about the couple's 30-year
difference in age. Some, such as Representative and former President
John Quincy Adams, mocked the president for marrying a young bride so
soon after meeting her. Julia Tyler's new stepchildren were
dismayed by the marriage, especially as some of them were older than
her and that it was so soon after their mother's death. Her
stepdaughters in particular were distrustful, though she was
ultimately accepted by all of them with the exception of Letitia
Semple. After her marriage, Tyler determined that she would give up
being a New Yorker and identify instead as a Virginian like her
husband.
First Lady of the United States
As the wife of the president, Julia
Tyler served as first lady of the United States for the final eight
months of his presidency. After a wedding trip to Philadelphia, a
White House reception, and a stay at Sherwood Forest, an estate the
president had recently acquired for his retirement, the newlyweds
returned to Washington D.C. Tyler was enthralled by the crowds that
followed them and the public interest in their secret wedding. After
arriving at the White House, Tyler sought to make the presidential
home more extravagant; she had the building cleaned, the furniture
replaced, and the staff uniforms updated. Access to the Gardiner
family fortune allowed her to remake the White House more than would
have otherwise been possible. She also purchased many elaborate
dresses at personal expense, becoming a prominent influence in
fashion. The extravagance was muted, however, by her period of
mourning for her father. Although her husband was often visibly
fatigued, his youthful wife thoroughly enjoyed the duties of first
lady.
Tyler did not have strong political
views of her own. Rather, she adopted and defended those of her
husband. She would encourage her husband to pursue whatever policies
he desired, and she would even flatter members of the Senate to win
their support. Political considerations were always factored into
social events, and Tyler used her influence to exert power in her own
right. In particular, she lobbied for the annexation of Texas as she
believed it would benefit her husband's legacy. Her open expression
of political opinion diverged from previous first ladies, who
generally expressed little interest in politics. After the president
signed off on the annexation of Texas in one of his final official
acts, Tyler began wearing the pen he used around her neck. Her
lobbying on the Texas issue is credited as a major factor in its
success. Her support for the annexation of Texas became publicly
known to the point where she was identified with the topic, and it
was the subject of the first political cartoon to tie a first lady to
a political issue.
Tyler's sister Margaret would assist
her in her duties while visiting Washington, serving as a social
secretary. Tyler became a point of contact for those wishing to
receive favors from the president, and the Gardiner family in
particular regularly sought support from the first lady. Among her
favorite requests were those for pardons and commutations by the
president, and it was Tyler's interjection that spared "Babe"
the pirate from a death sentence in New York. Tyler was often the
subject of human-interest stories, particularly those by Washington
correspondent F. W. Thomas of the New York Herald. Thomas' coverage
of her was consistently positive, and he bestowed upon her the
nickname "Lady Presidentress" with which she would
be popularly identified.
As first lady, Tyler wished to emulate
the customs of European courts. She had her own court formed from her
sister, her cousins, and her daughter-in-law to serve as her
ladies-in-waiting, and she would invite ladies of prominent families
to join her at events and receiving lines. She also kept an
Italian Greyhound that accompanied her, which the president had
ordered for her from Naples. Her sense of extravagance was also
noted when she drove four horses and when she received guests on an
armchair that was slightly elevated. To bring an element of grandiose
to the presidency, she began the tradition of a presidential anthem,
having "Hail to the Chief" played to announce the
entry of the president.
Tyler would break social norms by
dancing in public, which was considered scandalous at the time. Her
love for the polka helped popularize the dance in the United States.
She also introduced the waltz to White House events despite the
president's previous opposition to dancing. Several "Julia
Waltzes" were written in her honor and saw wide success.
Though Tyler was generally popular as first lady, her love of
drinking and dancing earned her the ire of religious citizens amidst
the Second Great Awakening. In the last month of her husband's
administration, Tyler hosted a grand White House ball for 3,000
guests where she danced with several important guests.
Post-presidency
Motherhood at Sherwood Forest
Plantation
After leaving the White House, the
Tylers retired to the Sherwood Forest Plantation, where they would
live until the Civil War. Although a northerner by birth, Mrs. Tyler
soon grew accustomed to the leisurely routines of daily life as the
wife of a wealthy plantation owner. The Tylers had seven children
together after leaving the White House: David Gardiner Tyler in 1846,
John Alexander Tyler in 1848, Julia Gardiner Tyler in 1849, Lachlan
Tyler in 1851, Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, Robert Fitzwalter Tyler
in 1856, and Pearl Tyler in 1860.
Tyler was responsible for the care of
not only her seven children, but several of her adult stepchildren,
their two hired workers, and approximately 70 slaves that were made
to work on the plantation. Tyler often hosted social gatherings and
long-term guests at their home, and the family regularly traveled
throughout the United States for vacation and for speaking
engagements. She also carried out renovations on their home, their
boat, and their carriage. Tyler eventually bought the Villa
Margaret summer home in Hampton, Virginia to accommodate their
growing family. The Tylers spent beyond their means, depleting the
Gardiner fortune and plunging them into financial trouble for much of
their marriage.
In 1853, Tyler wrote a defense of
slavery titled "The Women of England vs. the Women of
America", in response to the "Stafford House
Address" petition against slavery which the Duchess of
Sutherland had helped to organize. In her defense of slavery, Tyler
made several false claims to suggest that slaves lived comfortably in
the United States. Such a public expression of political opinion
was unusual for a woman in the Southern United States, but the nature
of the slavery debate won acceptance for her essay among the South.
In the North, she was regarded as a doughface, a disparaging term for
a Northerner that supported the South. In response to Tyler's
essay, Harriet Jacobs, a former slave and later abolitionist writer,
authored her first published work, a letter to the New York Tribune
in 1853.
Civil War
As states began to secede in the
buildup to the Civil War, the Tylers advocated the preservation of
the union. They went to Washington in early 1861 to alleviate the
crisis, with Tyler involving herself in the city's social life to
help improve Northern–Southern relations. By February, however,
Tyler and her husband accepted secession and aligned themselves with
the Confederate States of America. She volunteered to support the
Confederate war effort during the civil war, and she cut ties with
her family in New York when they remained loyal to the Union. She
became further opposed to the Union after Union soldiers captured her
summer home Villa Margaret.
Worrying for her husband's health while
he was away, Tyler joined him at the Confederate House of
Representatives, and he died days later on January 18, 1862. As Tyler
was a former first lady, Union soldiers did not seize their home at
Sherwood Forest Plantation, but her slaves began to leave. Tyler
ultimately lost her 60 slaves and 1,100 acres of land due to military
events. She moved north to her family home in Staten Island with
several of her children, but family relations were so strained that
her brother David refused to travel to Virginia to escort her to New
York. Tyler eventually returned to the Sherwood Forest Plantation,
where she hired a manager and two employees to tend to it. With her
two youngest children, she traveled to Bermuda where she lived with
other Confederates that had settled there. She returned to Staten
Island in November 1862 She bitterly argued with her Unionist
brother, who was eventually banished from the house after striking
her. Tyler was upset to hear that Sherwood Forest Plantation had
been captured while she was in New York, that her former slaves had
been given the crops that they grew, and that the building was being
used as a desegregated school.
Tyler continued to support the
Confederacy throughout the war, making donations to the Confederate
Army and distributing pamphlets in support of the cause. The day
after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, three men broke
into her home demanding that she turn over her Confederate flag,
searching for it and seizing it after she denied having one. She
blamed her brother of orchestrating the attack. The Tylers
remained unpopular after the war for supporting the Confederacy, so
the Tyler children were sent out of the country for schooling.
Later life and death
In 1865, Tyler's brother David sued to
prevent her from inheriting the bulk of their mother's estate valued
at $180,000, charging that she had exerted "undue influences"
on their mother to execute a will despite her "mental
incapacity". The court supported his claim on August 25 and
refused to accept the will. After two appeals, David Gardiner won the
case in 1867. David then asked the courts to partition the estate as
if no will existed. Tyler asked for a jury trial on the issue, and
the jury declined to consider the contested will as an argument in
her favor. Tyler was also involved in a separate legal battle to
regain her summerhouse Villa Margaret, which she would eventually win
back in 1869. After trying to sell it to President Ulysses S.
Grant, she was forced to sell Villa Margaret at a loss. She resided
at the Gardiner-Tyler House from 1868 to 1874.
Tyler resumed her socialite status in
Washington in the 1870s as the stigma of her Confederate sympathies
subsided. She would sometimes tend to White House events, supporting
first lady Julia Grant as hostess. In 1870, Tyler donated a portrait
of herself to the White House, starting the first ladies portrait
collection. In 1872, Tyler moved to Georgetown. She and her
daughter Pearl both converted to Roman Catholicism and were
conditionally baptized in May 1872. The depression that followed the
Panic of 1873 depleted her finances, forcing her to move back to
Sherwood Forest Plantation and to sell all of her other properties.
She lobbied Congress for a pension and was granted a monthly
allowance in 1880. Following the assassination of President James
Garfield in 1881, Congress granted an annual pension of $5,000 to
widows of former presidents. Her residence is listed as Williams
Landing in Hamilton County, Tennessee on page 342 of the 'List of
Pensioners on the Roll, January 1, 1883' where she is shown as
receiving $416.66 per month as a widow.
In 1882, Tyler moved to Richmond,
Virginia. Toward the end of her life, she suffered from malaria.
She made her final visit to Washington in 1887, when she met with
first lady Frances Cleveland, to whom she would sometimes provide
advise. Tyler suffered a stroke in Richmond and died there at the
Exchange Hotel on July 10, 1889, aged 69. Her husband had died of a
stroke 27 years earlier in the same hotel. She was buried next to him
at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. She had lived the longest post
White House life of any first lady, living another 44 years after
leaving the White House. She would hold this record until it was
overtaken by Frances Cleveland. Her funeral was held in Richmond at
St. Peter's Cathedral on July 12, 1889, and was attended by Governor
Fitzhugh Lee and Mayor James Taylor Ellyson, with the absolution
performed by Bishop Augustine Van de Vyver.
Legacy
The papers of the Tyler family,
including Julia Gardiner Tyler, are held by the Special Collections
Research Center at the College of William and Mary. Many of these
papers have not been incorporated into historical analysis of Julia
Tyler as of 2016. Tyler's son Lyon, like his father, married his
second wife late in life. As a result, Julia Tyler had two grandsons
that survived into the 21st century: one died in September 2020,
while Harrison Ruffin Tyler was still alive as of that date.
Tyler was generally well received
during her time as first lady, and she is credited with restoring the
Washington social world after the death of her husband's first wife.
She also provided a level of extravagance to the presidency, but she
did little to change or expand the substance of the role of first
lady. Instead, she strongly affected the role's imagery,
incorporating regal elements. She is recognized as one of the most
successful hostesses in the history of the White House, and she was
one of the earliest first ladies to be directly active in politics.
Her prominence in Washington has prompted greater historical interest
in her life compared to the less active presidential wives that
immediately preceded her.
Regard by historians
Since 1982 Siena College Research
Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to
assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the
independent criteria of their background, value to the country,
intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being
their own women, public image, and value to the president.
Consistently, Tyler has been ranked in the lower half of first ladies
by historians in these surveys. In terms of cumulative assessment,
Tyler has been ranked:
27th of 42 in 1982
27th of 37 in 1993
26th of 38 in 2003
28th of 38 in 2008
27th of 39 in 2014
In the 2014 survey, Tyler and her
husband were ranked the 34th out of 39 first couples in terms of
being a "power couple".
