September 14, 2023 • 38 mins
John Tyler was the president of the United States from 1841 to 1845 -- and, while some historians may not remember him as the best of presidents, he has another claim to fame: one of his grandchildren is alive today. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the life and times of President Tyler, from his childhood in Virginia through the strange circumstances that led him to the presidency, his marriages, children, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for our own commander
in chief production wise, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hodda, what's the big boss? Yea, hey you guys, I
wrote a campaign song. You want to hear it? Hell,
let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
He's the man man who is named John Tyler and
Jewish presidents, but we may.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That's all. I think it's there. I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
No, I think if it just kind of goes for
a little bit and stops and never achieves anything in
the song, it's very adequate to describe John Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, Max, though, I feel like that's a that's a
bit judgy. We're in the brainstorming portion of the songwriting.
I am Ben, you are Noll, and we are here,
indeed to explore the life and time of John Tyler,
who is unanimously praised as a person who is at
(01:41):
one point president.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So it took the canoe and Tyler too, how about that?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Also, old Kindercoll, You know, debatable etymology of the world's
most popular word, which is okay, that's nuts. We could
I want to doogy so I'm sort of an all
right kind of guy. I want to do an etymology show,
so bad.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Just if you could just do a series, man, who
knew you? Anyway, we already got a show. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, you know, it's funny because people are people are
always attempting to rank the best presidents, and it's a
small sample size. There aren't that many presidents yet because
the United States is a relatively young country in the
grand scheme of things. But as our research associate, also
(02:29):
named Max Williams, points out at the very top of
our show today, John Tyler is not going to be
in the top ten best president's list anywhere.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Well, unless you're talking about the top ten forgettable presidents
from Time magazine.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, that's where it's going.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah he makes that he makes that list.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I forgot about that list.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, he makes that list with a plum.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
He's what you might call a bit of a do nothing,
sort of an outfielder type president.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, let me let me rephrase that.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
I don't mean to mili professional outfielders, but you know,
I was made an outfielder in Little league.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's usually where they put the turds. You know, they
don't really do anything.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I was an outfield as well, so I got told, yeah,
it gets hit to you in right field, Max, They're
they're going to reach base no matter what your hand.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I was left field and it was awesome. I learned
a lot in ecology. Yeah, I learned a lot about
the local ecology of the ballfield.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And you know, there's.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
An argument that John Tyler was maybe that way. He
did earn his vice presidency based almost entirely on the
word of mouth campaign slogan tip a Canoe and Tyler too.
And when William Henry Harrison passed away, folks started calling
(03:48):
Tyler his accidency.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I mean, first of all, even in the little jingle,
he's an afterthought. But any inside, and know what the
hell Tip a Canoe comes from? What kind of nickname
is that I've never fully understood. I'm sure a cursory
Google would answer the question, but I prefer to ask
it in an analog fashion.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
It was a battle that William Henry Harrison had fought
against a local native tribal and you know one of
these things where they massacred like hundreds of.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Natives, Digitople killer yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Let's put that in the slogan that was a winning
issue in eighteen forty.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Let's just say, yeah, it sure was.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And there are a lot of ridiculous things about John Tyler.
He was the first president in history to become president
without a general election to that position. His own party
also really didn't like him, sort of the way that
the Democratic Party a few decades back didn't care for
(04:50):
Ralph Nader, and mostly his own party thought he was
too heavy with the vetos. They thought he had a
lead foot for the vetos, and eventually almost everybody, everybody
except for one person in his presidential cabinet resigned. For
any fans of Bill Clinton, Tyler was the first president
(05:15):
to have articles of impeachment filed against him, and they
did not come from his political opponents. They came from
his own party. Wow, it'll be your own people.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A bit of an encomposition.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
He also annexed Texas, which is a bit of a
move right.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, he really did, he did that thing, He annexed Texas.
Af However, that's not even the most ridiculous nor especially
notable stuff about the guy. This episode is about something
much more bizarre, and so maybe we open it up
by learning a little bit more about John Tyler before
(05:56):
he becomes potus.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Oh yeah, he was born with a spoon made of
some precious metal firmly in his mouth. Can't speak to
the actual medal, but definitely a bit of a one
percenter throwing off some serious landed gentry vibes. He led
a life that kind of blazed the trail towards this
(06:20):
level of political influence. There's a quote from William Freeling
in his biography of John Tyler called Life Before the
Presidency where he said John Tyler's rise to the highest
office in the nation signaled the last gasp of old
Virginia aristocracy in the White House. So maybe that's good
that it was the last gasp, because it does feel
(06:43):
like he was a bit of an incompetent to some degree,
and that usually happens when things are not a meritocracy
rather but a what do you call that cacristocracy? Sure,
just political dynasties and just kind of like these certain
colleges and certain types of social circles that lead to
(07:05):
folks pursuing these types of offices, and it's not necessarily
that they actually their hearts and minds are in the
right place.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, So there is an oligarchical, heavily hierarchical nature to this.
His family is old, old, old for Americans, at least
they go back to the sixteen fifties. And so this
guy has a weird coincidence in retrospect. His buddy William
(07:36):
Henry Harrison was born in that same county, and both
of their fathers at one point served as governors of Virginia.
So John the Elder, John Tyler's dad, the President's dad,
and Mary Armistead Tyler raised eight kids, and they raised
(07:57):
them in that narrow, oligarchical way. You are meant to
be the upper class. John Tyler, by the way, was
a homie of Thomas Jefferson, who would later also be
famous in American history, and John Tyler the Patriarch. He
owned a tobacco plantation, and he owned a lot of
(08:21):
enslaved people, dozens of enslaved people. When he wasn't enslaving people,
he was also a judge at the US Circuit Court
there in Richmond.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Wow, he was, as you might imagine, a big fan
of states rights, but not human rights, well exactly, but
states rights. I don't know that seems to be the
rally and cry in these days of the folks who ended.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Up on the wrong side of history. I mean it's
hardcore loss cause narrative, states rights. That's right, that's.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Right, And I mean, you know, look at it, looking
at it now through a modern lens, I think there
are obviously certain things that are better determined on a
state level rather than like a broad strokes approach federal stuff.
But I mean, in general, this is like a dog
whistle the states right stuff at the time, For like.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
We want to keep slaves.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He was mad about the Constitution. The President's dad was
mad that the Constitution was going to be a thing.
He was worried it might give the hoi polloi the
proletariat rights that he thought should be preserved for the
upper echalons of society.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
So not only did he want to hold on to
with an iron fist, his you know, human capital, his slaves,
but he also wanted to disempower as much as possible
anybody that he saw as beneath him.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I bet he would have a lively conversation about whether
or not the Irish were fully human.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Ways.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yeah, so John obviously grew up surrounded by this kind
of talk. And when he was just seven, his mom,
who I'm presuming was the good influence, you know, the
better angel, passed away from a stroke.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Probably not.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
She was terrible too, who knows. I'm just trying to
editorialize year a little bit. But he went to local schools,
as was the custom. At the age of twelve, he
entered a I guess what you would call like a
prep school, but this was a division of the College
of William and Mary, which I think is still very
much a well regarded university.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oldest college in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Again, and they're still doing good work.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
He So he goes to College of William and Mary
and eventually he graduates when he's only seventeen. It's eighteen
oh seven. Now he gets admitted to the Virginia bar
in eighteen oh nine. The same year his father, famously
a man of the people, becomes the governor of Virginia.
So he and his dad, his power familius, moved to Richmond,
(10:49):
and of course you got connections, you got nepotism, you
got networking. He immediately gets a job. John Tyler, the
younger call him junior in this why not it'll get confusing.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
We definitely are going to have more John Tyler's than
we don't to do with this episode.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
It's gonna be like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Shout
out one hundred years of Solitude, all right. So anyway,
he gets this job. The nation's first attorney general is
a dude named Edmund Randolph, and he hires John Tyler
the younger, quick, fast, and in a hurry. And immediately
(11:28):
everybody says, guys, he doesn't just want to be a lawyer.
He wants to enter the world of politics.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
I mean again, that's sort of like the what you
shoot for if you want to go beyond lawyer.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's sort of the prerequisite, right.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
It seems like most of the folks that enter civil
service quote unquote do have some sort of background in
the law, or at least at the levels of that
service that allows you to kind of feather your nest
and the nests of your old money cronies.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, and so it came to pass that after just
two years at the law firm, Tyler uses his boss's
connections to get a seat in state government. He joins
the Virginia House of Delegates, he is twenty one years old.
And then immediately he leads a campaign to I guess,
(12:24):
sort of admonish or shame other legislators who supported the
Bank of the United States. And he said, this is
too much power, it's too much nationalism. We are all
about states' rights. And unfortunately, you know, his father passed
away at this time, and so Tyler inherited a lot
(12:46):
of the estate, including enslaved people.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's right, he inherited.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Also, it seems his father's ideas about states rights and
also about holding slaves. He had a weird thing that
he did where he wanted to outlaw slave trade in
the district of Columbia, but opposed abolishing it without the
(13:19):
consent of Maryland and Virginia.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Kind of a half measures behind them, you know. And
and also the whole time, you guys, I'm sure have
we've all heard the myth about the seventh son of
a seventh son. I have a cousin like that, and
he's insufferable. I hope you're listening. And so this so
Tyler is he comes from a family of eight children.
(13:45):
He himself is going to go on and have seven children.
They're they're doing a lot reproduction wise and his wife,
Letitia Christian she is more of an introvert, and she's
more of a homemaker and so as as she's raising
(14:07):
these seven kids, as her husband is making all sorts
of policy that will affect people for generations, he's just
kind of not at home. Actually, it's like logistically interesting
that they had seven kids.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Yeah, it's like he's like a you're like one of
those cops. It's always on the case. You know, I can't.
I can't come home, Honey, I can't. I won't be
home for dinner tonight. I got to catch the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
I've been rewatching The Shield, which I think is a
really great show that really holds up with Michael Chickliss.
He's in a similar situation. Totally bad guy, different flavor
of bad than John Tyler. But yeah, I mean he
really is well for better or for worse. Spending a
lot of time at the office. One would hope for
better that he would become like better at his job,
(14:53):
but it would seem not.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It would seem not, so he just maybe didn't want
to go home.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He also liked the wheeling. He liked the dealing, you know,
I love that you're pointing out his odd stance on DC,
you know, in Maryland and Virginia being part of that.
He also was voting against tariffs, and then he voted
against South Carolina trying to nullify terrorists.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He was just sort of he.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Was one of those. He wasn't a yes and dude.
He was a no but dude, an obstructivist, and he
appears to have had some crises of conscience. In eighteen
thirty six, the Senate asked him to change his vote
on some resolutions that were censoring President Jackson for removing
(15:43):
money from the Bank of the United States. And they said,
reverse your vote. Yeah, they said, revers your vote, John,
And he said I will not, and they said yeah,
you should though, and he said I quit. So he
quit the Senate, one of the most prestigious jobs in
the United States then and today.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, yes, yes, that's right.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Whether he knew it or not, though it would seem
that dying on this particular hill was a positive for
him and earned him some street crowd with the opposing party,
the Whig Party, which in the year eighteen forty shot
him over a sweet nomination for Vice president in the
(16:25):
hopes that his southern charms and Wiles might attract some
of that voter block.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's all about it's all about unifying that voting
block right, getting as many people as possible to vote
for your ticket. We might not ordinarily like this president,
but we do love the VP. We don't like this
VP necessarily, but it's an acceptable compromise because we love
the president.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And this works.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Harrison and Tyler defeat Martin Van Buren and his vice president,
Richard M. Johnson. I gotta tell you too, it's it's
endlessly funny to me when you meet presidential history buffs.
Max is one. I'm one as well. Most of us
don't know the vice presidents. I'm just gonna be honest,
(17:15):
we just don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Max.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You can name all the presidents, as can I, but
can you name all the vice presidents?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh? Definitely not.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I mean there's so many of these turrets that were
just so forgettable. And I mean, here's the thing. It's important.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
You know this too.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The majority, like, especially pre nineteen hundred, most presidents were
just like.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They didn't do anything.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
A lot of these guys did nothing, and so they're
pretty forgettable, and thus their vice presidents are very forgata,
especially once get into the Gilded Age, because they're just
changing out vps all the time because they're always getting
charged with some sort of corruption charge, especially grant vps.
Grants VP's changed.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Also, let's say the quiet part out loud. For a
lot of early American history, a lot of these pos
peticians were kind of drunk.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Oh so drunk shot mad men rules, but like even
even more so. Yeah, I mean, we we've seen George
Washington's agnog recipe. Those guys were blasted.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Mad Men would look at these dudes and say, calm down, guys,
It's it's only eleven am.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Breaks, So we also know that slogan Typicalanoe and Tyler
too because of the cadence and the rhyming. Uh it
it became contagious in the American zeitgeist. Uh this does
refer to this river in Indiana where Harrison massacred Shawning population.
And then you know, Harrison is probably most famous for
(18:42):
dying a month into becoming president. No one knew what
to do. This was and I'm not proud of it, folks,
unprecedented long The Constitution didn't say anything about it. No
one had any idea, They said, what happens when the
(19:03):
president dies? Does the vice president automatically get the job?
Or are they just sort of the substitute teacher for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
It's sort of like we see a lot of flaws
in our government and the way things are run when
we start to realize that oftentimes things are just kind
of a product of decorum in sort of a sense
of like tradition, I guess. And when you have folks
that pay that no attention and just you know, crap
(19:34):
all over it like we've seen in recent times, you
realize there's no actual laws backing up a lot of
these things. It's just kind of the way things have
been done, or a situation that has yet to present itself.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, exactly. You cannot predict everything. And because of this,
Tyler's opponents, folks like John Quincy Adams start calling him
his accidency. You know, like, you didn't earn your spot here.
No one really voted for you, bro, We all know
how vice presidents work. Anyway, Tyler said, forget you guys,
(20:07):
I'm the president. I was next in line. Moves into
the White House and nobody manages to successfully overturn that decision.
While he's there, he stays old school. He goes back
to his Richmond days. Someone tries to establish a national
bank twice, and he vetos at both times. That's when
(20:28):
everybody from his cabinet except for one guy, resigns.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Guys like Vito Corleone over here. Am I right, you
are correct sir, I'm sorry, little drum kit. So obviously
we can understand the decision of Tyler's cabinet now. And
they're like, hey, we came up because we all liked
(20:53):
our boss, and a month later he died.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
We did not agree with you. We did not sign
up for this job. The only guy who stays is
Secretary of State Daniel Webster, which could be an episode
of his own anyway. Two days later, after everybody resigns,
the congressional reps in the Whig Party say, also, screw you, buddy,
we are not fans of Johnny t Well.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
You know we know that the president. While they are
bestowed with numerous unilateral powers, there is a little something
that seems to also kind of work, based more on
decorum than anything called checks and balances that does require
you to have some support from other wings of the government.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
They're obviously the veto.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Thing is very unilateral, but if you don't have any
support that, it's also going to be really hard for
you to push through any of your policies, of which
it seems many of his were based in those southern
ways that his papa kind of hipped into growing up.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This the excellent points you've made here. His administration does
manage to get stuff done. They reorganized the Navy, they
begin the United States Weather Bureau, thank you for that.
They end a war in Florida, the Second Seminole War
it's called. And then they put down they put down
(22:23):
a rebellion in Rhode Island. Now, I know we don't
all think of Rhode Island as the seat of secessionism
these days, but you know, in eighteen forty two it
was a very different place, and they maintained order.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Now, but taken as a list of accomplishments we just read,
that doesn't seem too terribly shabby, you know, especially given
that the deck was stacked against him. Why do people
hate this guy so much? I imagine we're going to
get to that.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
That's part of it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I think history doesn't look back kindly on the narchical
aspect of Tyler's ideology, and they don't like the racism
it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's sure, that people.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
It's just surprising to me that despite having very little
support from his party and from the legislature, that he
was able to get so much done. I mean, in
modern time, we've certainly seen presidents that were absolutely hamstrung
by activist kind of you know, behavior from the opposing party,
just trying to hold up every bit of an agenda
(23:31):
as possible just to make the president look bad. I'm
just wondering if maybe things were a little differently and
he was able to operate a little more unilaterally or
like in a kingly fashion.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I mean, I think an important note about this period
of time is to understand what the Whig Party was,
which was we don't like Andrew Jackson and nothing more
than that.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
His whole thing was he was a Democrat who didn't
like Andrew Jackson. And so the wags are go, come
on over with us, you can be our VP and stuff,
and like, you know, we talked about it with uh,
Henry Clay, because Henry Clay was like the one true
Wig it felt like nobody else was a wig, and
so a lot of the stuff he was doing was
probably very popular with the opposition party, Like he was
(24:12):
always doing things with the devocrats like yeah, and the
whigs like half of them work yeah, and half of
them work no. And then somehow a third half of
them was like, I don't know, like licking glue.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Who knows. Wigs did not see.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
The wigs were not around for very long for very
obvious reasons, because Andrew Jackson eventually.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Died and they had no way forward. They had no
real core policy of tricky Screw Jackson.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
When you make your whole thing just based around hating
a person, and then you lose the object of your hatred,
it's your kind of rudderless at that point.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's sort of funny if you think.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
About, well, it's it's the same reason why beginning something,
any great endeavor with a negative aspect baked into the core,
they're usually not sustainable, you know. And so at this
same time, with great tragedy, seven children are left without
(25:05):
a mother because Letitia dies in eighteen forty two. This
is the first time an acting president's wife has passed
away in the White House. Tyler marries another person two
years later, Julia Gardner, in eighteen forty four, and so
he also becomes the first active president to marry while
(25:27):
in office. And like you were saying, Max, the Whigs
agree with him on some things, reject him on others.
The Democrats are very much not super fans of John Tyler.
And so this guy, you gotta admire the hutsba. This
guy goes into the presidential election in eighteen forty four
(25:47):
as the candidate of his own party. He made up
his own party, he found like the six people in
Washington who would hang out with him, and then said,
everybody hates me. Make the president again. It didn't work.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean once again, he was kind of what
do you call it? He had some just guy. He
was left with some hanging out in the breeze, you know,
he was.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
He was alone.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Nobody wanted to back him. He had a very difficult
time getting any support, to the point that in August
eighteen forty four, he actually took his name out of
the hat, the conceptual hat, and instead decided to throw
his support behind the Democratic nominee, James K.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Polk.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
And after he left office, he did continue to be
something of a social activist or he you know, he
maintained a voice in public of fails, you know, and
he of course maintained that beaten of that.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's so and drum he loved so well.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Hm and uh, let me let me amend this. He
had eight children. I believe I may have said seven earlier,
so let's be clear there. That's why we're talking about
this episode. America's tenth president had a grandchild that lived
(27:24):
well into the modern age. It is absolutely bizarre. Shout
out again to Sherwood Forrest, home of President Tyler. You
can learn more information about this.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
He had.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So, he had eight kids with his first wife, Letitia
Mary Robert and John, Letitia Elizabeth Alice and of course
Max's favorite Taze. Well, Taz Well, that's a ribulous name.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Now i'minna determinism there means this person's going to become
like a security guard or the inventor of the taser,
which has it's literally spelled that way. I've never seen that.
It does seem kind of like a Southern name like
mister Tay's.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Well, you know, I just.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
Picture that, and can I also just say that when
people on YouTube who are like coastal, kind of like
California types mock the South as an overarching thing. I
want to punch them. I hate it because we you know,
we live here. We can make fun of it. But
when you do that voice and you're from like California
(28:25):
or something like that in New York, it almost good
burns me up, burns me up.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, isn't that what British people think about when we
do British commonly?
Speaker 5 (28:33):
So I'm trying to be self aware about all of this,
but I'm saying also, like or Georgia is a complex state,
just like anywhere else. You know, you've got your redneck
contingents in California, you've got bad people and lazy, good
for nothing, uneducated, you know, dingbats everywhere.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's just really annoying to me.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
I think that lazy when people focus in on the
South and act like it's.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
All just you know, people marrying their cousins or something
like that. Well, that's which we have an episode about.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
That's the word. That's the word lazy.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I love I love a good Cartoonish accent, obviously, and
I love it when it's well intentioned in good fun.
But when it's lazy writing, then it's just a case
of do better, you know what I mean. And here's
the deal with the children. So you'll find some sources
saying seven children with the first wife, some saying eight.
(29:26):
The truth of it is that unfortunately one of those
kids died at birth and that's why the source is different.
Little and so when he real it doesn't stop there,
as Billy Mays was wont to say, wait, there's more.
When he marries Julia Gardner Tyler, who is thirty years
younger than him, they have more kids.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Again, no judgment here, but I would say that goes
against the whole age appropriate formula that we've talked about
on the show.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I think, yes, indeed, fight it by Yeah, it's actually
not as far off as you thanks.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Not so bad, okay, Okay, get yeah, Because it does
have to do with the age that the the.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That's the one, isn't it? Okay? So what so that
would be.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Forty two if he was seventy I don't remember exactly
how old he was when he.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Married her, well, probably about sixty nine. Let's just make
it the naughty number and call it sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Nice, So she would have been thirty nine. I feel
like she was in her Yeah, I don't know. It's
pushing it, Yes.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
It's pushing it. But whatever, we're not here to judge
it was. It was a different time. But yeah, they
did have a child. His youngest, Shell Pearl, was born
at the right old age of seventy. Yeah, not the
child instantly seventy. That'd be interesting. That makes some Benjamin
Button stuff. Now, Tyler was seventy when he his wife
gave birth to their youngest child.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Happens a lot these days as well. You know, I
think Robert de Niro notable actor, and Mick Jagger, notable musician,
both had some kids pretty lately.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
It looks like he lost more than just one child though, right,
they had four tragic.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Two actually kind of juman backtrack because actually child were following,
So he had seven more children with this woman.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, the one child he lost was from the first man,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
But then, but so the joke of it is like,
there's four children who died before the birth of his
last child.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
That was in the what was going on? That sounds
that's unlikely. Yeah, I mean again, there's a different time.
Medical technology wasn't where it is, but that just seems
like real ron luck there.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
He had a total of fifteen children, fifteen legitimate children
that we know of, with two spouses, eight boys, seven girls,
and as you point out, Max, four of his children
had already passed away by the time he had his
last child, Pearl that you mentioned, Noel and Pearl. Let's
(31:54):
trace the line a bit. Pearl lives until nineteen forty seven. Pearl,
she's born in eighteen sixty. She lives long enough to
see World War two, World War One, the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It's nuts.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm going to use the phrase Max, you wrote this,
and I just want to give credit where it's due.
You could say a hyper virulent sperm.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
The seed is strong. Yeah, that was a Game of Thrones.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
There is another well known book I believe you reference
already been, which was called Sherwood Forest, Home of President
John Tyler, in which they make notes that he had
forty four grandchildren, five of which were named John. And
I just having just recently rewatched the nineteen seventies Disney
(32:45):
Robin Hood, I love the idea of living in Sherwood Forest.
It seems like a place for the proletariat, you know,
it seems like a place where like a band of
mary you know, ruffians hang out and have their fort
and steal from the rich.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
But not this Sherwood forrest. It would seem no.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And this all leads us to the grand mathematical oddity.
If we're playing along at home ridiculous historians, fifteen children.
Those fifteen children make forty four grandchildren, and five of
those are confusingly named John. This means that up until
(33:23):
just three years ago, two of the tenth president's grandchildren
were alive. They were alive while we were doing this show.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's wild man, the tenth President. That's a long time ago.
I don't understand. We're in seventeen ninety.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Yeah, that's pretty insane. Is that strong sperm? That's what
did it? It has life giving powers. You know, it's
that strong math too, So it obviously sperm in general
has life giving powers. That's sort of what it is,
but mystical imbued with a little more rutzba.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, so let's give you the names. Lyon Gardner Tyler, Junior,
grandson of the tenth President, Johnny T, passed away on
September twenty sixth, twenty twenty at the heartbreakingly young age
of ninety five.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Ninety five years young and gone too soon. Lyon's brother,
Harrison Ruffin Taylor, I love the name. Ruffin, by the way,
was born in nineteen twenty eight. Is still living, that's
right to this day, still living.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He is ninety five years old.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, exactly ninety five years young, ripe old age. But
he's still gets out there and mall walks. You know,
I'm sure, what is this guy up to? I'm intrigued,
really wild.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
He does a lot of a lot of EDM, a
lot of DJing, He's got some deep house, a little
bit of jungle, you.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Know, really into VR rhythm games. That's his whole thing.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And so we're going to call it a day, but
we want you to know, fellow ridiculous historians, Noel Max
and I went through more research we had compiled for this,
and we we're gonna bring it back in our continuing
clip show, which so far has ended up with us
(35:25):
doing like one piece of stuff we didn't get to
and I'm happy with that. I thought the nukes episode
was good.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh totally. And it's fine.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
We've got stuff that like ends up kind of clustered
around sort of themes, so it'll be really fun to
do this. I would love to add one last little
bit of trivia. I just found this before we took
a little off Mike moment. We mentioned the tagline Tippecanoe
and Tyler too, and we're talking about that this was
an egregious act of war criminality by the US and
(35:53):
defeating indigenous people and dare we say slaughtering them?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
We do say.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
But apparently there's a thing called the Typeic Canoe curse
or Tecumsa's curse, which is an urban legend that cursed
United States presidents voted into office in years that end
with zero that can be divided by twenty. Eighteen forty
President Harrison died in office from elling this. Eighteen sixty,
Lincoln assassinated, eighteen eighty, Garfield assassinated nineteen twenty. Harding died
(36:21):
in office after suffering a heart attack. Nineteen forty. Roosevelt
died during his fourth term. Nineteen sixty. Kennedy assassinated. Interesting,
didn't know about this, thought it worth mentioning, But yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Kind of an ornery, you.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
Know, spoiled brat type figure in politics. But I think
the lineage is interesting and I'll honestly how he came
to be in power is also interesting. The whole thing,
you know, I think it fits the bill for ridiculous history.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Also, one last thing I do want to point out.
It seems like the two grandchildren Lion Harrison, seemed to
be alright, dude, So it looks like, you know, it
seems like the terribleness has knock all of you down.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Their father as much. If you're interested in learning more about.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Him, find his William and Mary page that talks about
his time as president of the College of William Mary.
By the way, they all went to college with William
and Mary, very that old old.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Old dominion, because of course they did. And it's important
to know the sins of the parents, you're not the
sins of the child, right, So we're going to end
it there. Thank you as always, folks, so much for
tuning in. Thanks to our super producer and research associate
for this episode, mister Max Williams, as well as his
(37:43):
own brothers still alive Alex Williams, who composed this track.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Huge thanks to Chris frosciotis here in spirit. He's Jeff Coates.
Jonathan Strickland ever made the curse of strickland.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Rain in any year that ends with a number exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for our own commander
in chief production wise, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hodda, what's the big boss? Yea, hey you guys, I
wrote a campaign song. You want to hear it? Hell,
let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
He's the man man who is named John Tyler and
Jewish presidents, but we may.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That's all. I think it's there. I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
No, I think if it just kind of goes for
a little bit and stops and never achieves anything in
the song, it's very adequate to describe John Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, Max, though, I feel like that's a that's a
bit judgy. We're in the brainstorming portion of the songwriting.
I am Ben, you are Noll, and we are here,
indeed to explore the life and time of John Tyler,
who is unanimously praised as a person who is at
(01:41):
one point president.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So it took the canoe and Tyler too, how about that?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Also, old Kindercoll, You know, debatable etymology of the world's
most popular word, which is okay, that's nuts. We could
I want to doogy so I'm sort of an all
right kind of guy. I want to do an etymology show,
so bad.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Just if you could just do a series, man, who
knew you? Anyway, we already got a show. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, you know, it's funny because people are people are
always attempting to rank the best presidents, and it's a
small sample size. There aren't that many presidents yet because
the United States is a relatively young country in the
grand scheme of things. But as our research associate, also
(02:29):
named Max Williams, points out at the very top of
our show today, John Tyler is not going to be
in the top ten best president's list anywhere.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Well, unless you're talking about the top ten forgettable presidents
from Time magazine.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, that's where it's going.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah he makes that he makes that list.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I forgot about that list.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, he makes that list with a plum.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
He's what you might call a bit of a do nothing,
sort of an outfielder type president.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, let me let me rephrase that.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
I don't mean to mili professional outfielders, but you know,
I was made an outfielder in Little league.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's usually where they put the turds. You know, they
don't really do anything.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I was an outfield as well, so I got told, yeah,
it gets hit to you in right field, Max, They're
they're going to reach base no matter what your hand.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I was left field and it was awesome. I learned
a lot in ecology. Yeah, I learned a lot about
the local ecology of the ballfield.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And you know, there's.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
An argument that John Tyler was maybe that way. He
did earn his vice presidency based almost entirely on the
word of mouth campaign slogan tip a Canoe and Tyler too.
And when William Henry Harrison passed away, folks started calling
(03:48):
Tyler his accidency.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I mean, first of all, even in the little jingle,
he's an afterthought. But any inside, and know what the
hell Tip a Canoe comes from? What kind of nickname
is that I've never fully understood. I'm sure a cursory
Google would answer the question, but I prefer to ask
it in an analog fashion.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
It was a battle that William Henry Harrison had fought
against a local native tribal and you know one of
these things where they massacred like hundreds of.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Natives, Digitople killer yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Let's put that in the slogan that was a winning
issue in eighteen forty.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Let's just say, yeah, it sure was.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And there are a lot of ridiculous things about John Tyler.
He was the first president in history to become president
without a general election to that position. His own party
also really didn't like him, sort of the way that
the Democratic Party a few decades back didn't care for
(04:50):
Ralph Nader, and mostly his own party thought he was
too heavy with the vetos. They thought he had a
lead foot for the vetos, and eventually almost everybody, everybody
except for one person in his presidential cabinet resigned. For
any fans of Bill Clinton, Tyler was the first president
(05:15):
to have articles of impeachment filed against him, and they
did not come from his political opponents. They came from
his own party. Wow, it'll be your own people.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A bit of an encomposition.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
He also annexed Texas, which is a bit of a
move right.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, he really did, he did that thing, He annexed Texas.
Af However, that's not even the most ridiculous nor especially
notable stuff about the guy. This episode is about something
much more bizarre, and so maybe we open it up
by learning a little bit more about John Tyler before
(05:56):
he becomes potus.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Oh yeah, he was born with a spoon made of
some precious metal firmly in his mouth. Can't speak to
the actual medal, but definitely a bit of a one
percenter throwing off some serious landed gentry vibes. He led
a life that kind of blazed the trail towards this
(06:20):
level of political influence. There's a quote from William Freeling
in his biography of John Tyler called Life Before the
Presidency where he said John Tyler's rise to the highest
office in the nation signaled the last gasp of old
Virginia aristocracy in the White House. So maybe that's good
that it was the last gasp, because it does feel
(06:43):
like he was a bit of an incompetent to some degree,
and that usually happens when things are not a meritocracy
rather but a what do you call that cacristocracy? Sure,
just political dynasties and just kind of like these certain
colleges and certain types of social circles that lead to
(07:05):
folks pursuing these types of offices, and it's not necessarily
that they actually their hearts and minds are in the
right place.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, So there is an oligarchical, heavily hierarchical nature to this.
His family is old, old, old for Americans, at least
they go back to the sixteen fifties. And so this
guy has a weird coincidence in retrospect. His buddy William
(07:36):
Henry Harrison was born in that same county, and both
of their fathers at one point served as governors of Virginia.
So John the Elder, John Tyler's dad, the President's dad,
and Mary Armistead Tyler raised eight kids, and they raised
(07:57):
them in that narrow, oligarchical way. You are meant to
be the upper class. John Tyler, by the way, was
a homie of Thomas Jefferson, who would later also be
famous in American history, and John Tyler the Patriarch. He
owned a tobacco plantation, and he owned a lot of
(08:21):
enslaved people, dozens of enslaved people. When he wasn't enslaving people,
he was also a judge at the US Circuit Court
there in Richmond.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Wow, he was, as you might imagine, a big fan
of states rights, but not human rights, well exactly, but
states rights. I don't know that seems to be the
rally and cry in these days of the folks who ended.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Up on the wrong side of history. I mean it's
hardcore loss cause narrative, states rights. That's right, that's.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Right, And I mean, you know, look at it, looking
at it now through a modern lens, I think there
are obviously certain things that are better determined on a
state level rather than like a broad strokes approach federal stuff.
But I mean, in general, this is like a dog
whistle the states right stuff at the time, For like.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
We want to keep slaves.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He was mad about the Constitution. The President's dad was
mad that the Constitution was going to be a thing.
He was worried it might give the hoi polloi the
proletariat rights that he thought should be preserved for the
upper echalons of society.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
So not only did he want to hold on to
with an iron fist, his you know, human capital, his slaves,
but he also wanted to disempower as much as possible
anybody that he saw as beneath him.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I bet he would have a lively conversation about whether
or not the Irish were fully human.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Ways.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yeah, so John obviously grew up surrounded by this kind
of talk. And when he was just seven, his mom,
who I'm presuming was the good influence, you know, the
better angel, passed away from a stroke.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Probably not.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
She was terrible too, who knows. I'm just trying to
editorialize year a little bit. But he went to local schools,
as was the custom. At the age of twelve, he
entered a I guess what you would call like a
prep school, but this was a division of the College
of William and Mary, which I think is still very
much a well regarded university.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oldest college in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Again, and they're still doing good work.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
He So he goes to College of William and Mary
and eventually he graduates when he's only seventeen. It's eighteen
oh seven. Now he gets admitted to the Virginia bar
in eighteen oh nine. The same year his father, famously
a man of the people, becomes the governor of Virginia.
So he and his dad, his power familius, moved to Richmond,
(10:49):
and of course you got connections, you got nepotism, you
got networking. He immediately gets a job. John Tyler, the
younger call him junior in this why not it'll get confusing.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
We definitely are going to have more John Tyler's than
we don't to do with this episode.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
It's gonna be like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Shout
out one hundred years of Solitude, all right. So anyway,
he gets this job. The nation's first attorney general is
a dude named Edmund Randolph, and he hires John Tyler
the younger, quick, fast, and in a hurry. And immediately
(11:28):
everybody says, guys, he doesn't just want to be a lawyer.
He wants to enter the world of politics.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
I mean again, that's sort of like the what you
shoot for if you want to go beyond lawyer.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's sort of the prerequisite, right.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
It seems like most of the folks that enter civil
service quote unquote do have some sort of background in
the law, or at least at the levels of that
service that allows you to kind of feather your nest
and the nests of your old money cronies.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, and so it came to pass that after just
two years at the law firm, Tyler uses his boss's
connections to get a seat in state government. He joins
the Virginia House of Delegates, he is twenty one years old.
And then immediately he leads a campaign to I guess,
(12:24):
sort of admonish or shame other legislators who supported the
Bank of the United States. And he said, this is
too much power, it's too much nationalism. We are all
about states' rights. And unfortunately, you know, his father passed
away at this time, and so Tyler inherited a lot
(12:46):
of the estate, including enslaved people.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's right, he inherited.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Also, it seems his father's ideas about states rights and
also about holding slaves. He had a weird thing that
he did where he wanted to outlaw slave trade in
the district of Columbia, but opposed abolishing it without the
(13:19):
consent of Maryland and Virginia.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Kind of a half measures behind them, you know. And
and also the whole time, you guys, I'm sure have
we've all heard the myth about the seventh son of
a seventh son. I have a cousin like that, and
he's insufferable. I hope you're listening. And so this so
Tyler is he comes from a family of eight children.
(13:45):
He himself is going to go on and have seven children.
They're they're doing a lot reproduction wise and his wife,
Letitia Christian she is more of an introvert, and she's
more of a homemaker and so as as she's raising
(14:07):
these seven kids, as her husband is making all sorts
of policy that will affect people for generations, he's just
kind of not at home. Actually, it's like logistically interesting
that they had seven kids.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Yeah, it's like he's like a you're like one of
those cops. It's always on the case. You know, I can't.
I can't come home, Honey, I can't. I won't be
home for dinner tonight. I got to catch the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
I've been rewatching The Shield, which I think is a
really great show that really holds up with Michael Chickliss.
He's in a similar situation. Totally bad guy, different flavor
of bad than John Tyler. But yeah, I mean he
really is well for better or for worse. Spending a
lot of time at the office. One would hope for
better that he would become like better at his job,
(14:53):
but it would seem not.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It would seem not, so he just maybe didn't want
to go home.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He also liked the wheeling. He liked the dealing, you know,
I love that you're pointing out his odd stance on DC,
you know, in Maryland and Virginia being part of that.
He also was voting against tariffs, and then he voted
against South Carolina trying to nullify terrorists.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He was just sort of he.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Was one of those. He wasn't a yes and dude.
He was a no but dude, an obstructivist, and he
appears to have had some crises of conscience. In eighteen
thirty six, the Senate asked him to change his vote
on some resolutions that were censoring President Jackson for removing
(15:43):
money from the Bank of the United States. And they said,
reverse your vote. Yeah, they said, revers your vote, John,
And he said I will not, and they said yeah,
you should though, and he said I quit. So he
quit the Senate, one of the most prestigious jobs in
the United States then and today.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, yes, yes, that's right.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Whether he knew it or not, though it would seem
that dying on this particular hill was a positive for
him and earned him some street crowd with the opposing party,
the Whig Party, which in the year eighteen forty shot
him over a sweet nomination for Vice president in the
(16:25):
hopes that his southern charms and Wiles might attract some
of that voter block.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's all about it's all about unifying that voting
block right, getting as many people as possible to vote
for your ticket. We might not ordinarily like this president,
but we do love the VP. We don't like this
VP necessarily, but it's an acceptable compromise because we love
the president.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And this works.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Harrison and Tyler defeat Martin Van Buren and his vice president,
Richard M. Johnson. I gotta tell you too, it's it's
endlessly funny to me when you meet presidential history buffs.
Max is one. I'm one as well. Most of us
don't know the vice presidents. I'm just gonna be honest,
(17:15):
we just don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Max.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You can name all the presidents, as can I, but
can you name all the vice presidents?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh? Definitely not.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I mean there's so many of these turrets that were
just so forgettable. And I mean, here's the thing. It's important.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
You know this too.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The majority, like, especially pre nineteen hundred, most presidents were
just like.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They didn't do anything.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
A lot of these guys did nothing, and so they're
pretty forgettable, and thus their vice presidents are very forgata,
especially once get into the Gilded Age, because they're just
changing out vps all the time because they're always getting
charged with some sort of corruption charge, especially grant vps.
Grants VP's changed.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Also, let's say the quiet part out loud. For a
lot of early American history, a lot of these pos
peticians were kind of drunk.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Oh so drunk shot mad men rules, but like even
even more so. Yeah, I mean, we we've seen George
Washington's agnog recipe. Those guys were blasted.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Mad Men would look at these dudes and say, calm down, guys,
It's it's only eleven am.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Breaks, So we also know that slogan Typicalanoe and Tyler
too because of the cadence and the rhyming. Uh it
it became contagious in the American zeitgeist. Uh this does
refer to this river in Indiana where Harrison massacred Shawning population.
And then you know, Harrison is probably most famous for
(18:42):
dying a month into becoming president. No one knew what
to do. This was and I'm not proud of it, folks,
unprecedented long The Constitution didn't say anything about it. No
one had any idea, They said, what happens when the
(19:03):
president dies? Does the vice president automatically get the job?
Or are they just sort of the substitute teacher for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
It's sort of like we see a lot of flaws
in our government and the way things are run when
we start to realize that oftentimes things are just kind
of a product of decorum in sort of a sense
of like tradition, I guess. And when you have folks
that pay that no attention and just you know, crap
(19:34):
all over it like we've seen in recent times, you
realize there's no actual laws backing up a lot of
these things. It's just kind of the way things have
been done, or a situation that has yet to present itself.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, exactly. You cannot predict everything. And because of this,
Tyler's opponents, folks like John Quincy Adams start calling him
his accidency. You know, like, you didn't earn your spot here.
No one really voted for you, bro, We all know
how vice presidents work. Anyway, Tyler said, forget you guys,
(20:07):
I'm the president. I was next in line. Moves into
the White House and nobody manages to successfully overturn that decision.
While he's there, he stays old school. He goes back
to his Richmond days. Someone tries to establish a national
bank twice, and he vetos at both times. That's when
(20:28):
everybody from his cabinet except for one guy, resigns.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Guys like Vito Corleone over here. Am I right, you
are correct sir, I'm sorry, little drum kit. So obviously
we can understand the decision of Tyler's cabinet now. And
they're like, hey, we came up because we all liked
(20:53):
our boss, and a month later he died.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
We did not agree with you. We did not sign
up for this job. The only guy who stays is
Secretary of State Daniel Webster, which could be an episode
of his own anyway. Two days later, after everybody resigns,
the congressional reps in the Whig Party say, also, screw you, buddy,
we are not fans of Johnny t Well.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
You know we know that the president. While they are
bestowed with numerous unilateral powers, there is a little something
that seems to also kind of work, based more on
decorum than anything called checks and balances that does require
you to have some support from other wings of the government.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
They're obviously the veto.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Thing is very unilateral, but if you don't have any
support that, it's also going to be really hard for
you to push through any of your policies, of which
it seems many of his were based in those southern
ways that his papa kind of hipped into growing up.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This the excellent points you've made here. His administration does
manage to get stuff done. They reorganized the Navy, they
begin the United States Weather Bureau, thank you for that.
They end a war in Florida, the Second Seminole War
it's called. And then they put down they put down
(22:23):
a rebellion in Rhode Island. Now, I know we don't
all think of Rhode Island as the seat of secessionism
these days, but you know, in eighteen forty two it
was a very different place, and they maintained order.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Now, but taken as a list of accomplishments we just read,
that doesn't seem too terribly shabby, you know, especially given
that the deck was stacked against him. Why do people
hate this guy so much? I imagine we're going to
get to that.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
That's part of it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I think history doesn't look back kindly on the narchical
aspect of Tyler's ideology, and they don't like the racism
it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's sure, that people.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
It's just surprising to me that despite having very little
support from his party and from the legislature, that he
was able to get so much done. I mean, in
modern time, we've certainly seen presidents that were absolutely hamstrung
by activist kind of you know, behavior from the opposing party,
just trying to hold up every bit of an agenda
(23:31):
as possible just to make the president look bad. I'm
just wondering if maybe things were a little differently and
he was able to operate a little more unilaterally or
like in a kingly fashion.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I mean, I think an important note about this period
of time is to understand what the Whig Party was,
which was we don't like Andrew Jackson and nothing more
than that.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
His whole thing was he was a Democrat who didn't
like Andrew Jackson. And so the wags are go, come
on over with us, you can be our VP and stuff,
and like, you know, we talked about it with uh,
Henry Clay, because Henry Clay was like the one true
Wig it felt like nobody else was a wig, and
so a lot of the stuff he was doing was
probably very popular with the opposition party, Like he was
(24:12):
always doing things with the devocrats like yeah, and the
whigs like half of them work yeah, and half of
them work no. And then somehow a third half of
them was like, I don't know, like licking glue.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Who knows. Wigs did not see.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
The wigs were not around for very long for very
obvious reasons, because Andrew Jackson eventually.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Died and they had no way forward. They had no
real core policy of tricky Screw Jackson.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
When you make your whole thing just based around hating
a person, and then you lose the object of your hatred,
it's your kind of rudderless at that point.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's sort of funny if you think.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
About, well, it's it's the same reason why beginning something,
any great endeavor with a negative aspect baked into the core,
they're usually not sustainable, you know. And so at this
same time, with great tragedy, seven children are left without
(25:05):
a mother because Letitia dies in eighteen forty two. This
is the first time an acting president's wife has passed
away in the White House. Tyler marries another person two
years later, Julia Gardner, in eighteen forty four, and so
he also becomes the first active president to marry while
(25:27):
in office. And like you were saying, Max, the Whigs
agree with him on some things, reject him on others.
The Democrats are very much not super fans of John Tyler.
And so this guy, you gotta admire the hutsba. This
guy goes into the presidential election in eighteen forty four
(25:47):
as the candidate of his own party. He made up
his own party, he found like the six people in
Washington who would hang out with him, and then said,
everybody hates me. Make the president again. It didn't work.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean once again, he was kind of what
do you call it? He had some just guy. He
was left with some hanging out in the breeze, you know,
he was.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
He was alone.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Nobody wanted to back him. He had a very difficult
time getting any support, to the point that in August
eighteen forty four, he actually took his name out of
the hat, the conceptual hat, and instead decided to throw
his support behind the Democratic nominee, James K.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Polk.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
And after he left office, he did continue to be
something of a social activist or he you know, he
maintained a voice in public of fails, you know, and
he of course maintained that beaten of that.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's so and drum he loved so well.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Hm and uh, let me let me amend this. He
had eight children. I believe I may have said seven earlier,
so let's be clear there. That's why we're talking about
this episode. America's tenth president had a grandchild that lived
(27:24):
well into the modern age. It is absolutely bizarre. Shout
out again to Sherwood Forrest, home of President Tyler. You
can learn more information about this.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
He had.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So, he had eight kids with his first wife, Letitia
Mary Robert and John, Letitia Elizabeth Alice and of course
Max's favorite Taze. Well, Taz Well, that's a ribulous name.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Now i'minna determinism there means this person's going to become
like a security guard or the inventor of the taser,
which has it's literally spelled that way. I've never seen that.
It does seem kind of like a Southern name like
mister Tay's.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Well, you know, I just.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
Picture that, and can I also just say that when
people on YouTube who are like coastal, kind of like
California types mock the South as an overarching thing. I
want to punch them. I hate it because we you know,
we live here. We can make fun of it. But
when you do that voice and you're from like California
(28:25):
or something like that in New York, it almost good
burns me up, burns me up.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, isn't that what British people think about when we
do British commonly?
Speaker 5 (28:33):
So I'm trying to be self aware about all of this,
but I'm saying also, like or Georgia is a complex state,
just like anywhere else. You know, you've got your redneck
contingents in California, you've got bad people and lazy, good
for nothing, uneducated, you know, dingbats everywhere.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's just really annoying to me.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
I think that lazy when people focus in on the
South and act like it's.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
All just you know, people marrying their cousins or something
like that. Well, that's which we have an episode about.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
That's the word. That's the word lazy.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I love I love a good Cartoonish accent, obviously, and
I love it when it's well intentioned in good fun.
But when it's lazy writing, then it's just a case
of do better, you know what I mean. And here's
the deal with the children. So you'll find some sources
saying seven children with the first wife, some saying eight.
(29:26):
The truth of it is that unfortunately one of those
kids died at birth and that's why the source is different.
Little and so when he real it doesn't stop there,
as Billy Mays was wont to say, wait, there's more.
When he marries Julia Gardner Tyler, who is thirty years
younger than him, they have more kids.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Again, no judgment here, but I would say that goes
against the whole age appropriate formula that we've talked about
on the show.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I think, yes, indeed, fight it by Yeah, it's actually
not as far off as you thanks.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Not so bad, okay, Okay, get yeah, Because it does
have to do with the age that the the.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That's the one, isn't it? Okay? So what so that
would be.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Forty two if he was seventy I don't remember exactly
how old he was when he.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Married her, well, probably about sixty nine. Let's just make
it the naughty number and call it sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Nice, So she would have been thirty nine. I feel
like she was in her Yeah, I don't know. It's
pushing it, Yes.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
It's pushing it. But whatever, we're not here to judge
it was. It was a different time. But yeah, they
did have a child. His youngest, Shell Pearl, was born
at the right old age of seventy. Yeah, not the
child instantly seventy. That'd be interesting. That makes some Benjamin
Button stuff. Now, Tyler was seventy when he his wife
gave birth to their youngest child.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Happens a lot these days as well. You know, I
think Robert de Niro notable actor, and Mick Jagger, notable musician,
both had some kids pretty lately.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
It looks like he lost more than just one child though, right,
they had four tragic.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Two actually kind of juman backtrack because actually child were following,
So he had seven more children with this woman.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, the one child he lost was from the first man,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
But then, but so the joke of it is like,
there's four children who died before the birth of his
last child.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
That was in the what was going on? That sounds
that's unlikely. Yeah, I mean again, there's a different time.
Medical technology wasn't where it is, but that just seems
like real ron luck there.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
He had a total of fifteen children, fifteen legitimate children
that we know of, with two spouses, eight boys, seven girls,
and as you point out, Max, four of his children
had already passed away by the time he had his
last child, Pearl that you mentioned, Noel and Pearl. Let's
(31:54):
trace the line a bit. Pearl lives until nineteen forty seven. Pearl,
she's born in eighteen sixty. She lives long enough to
see World War two, World War One, the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It's nuts.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm going to use the phrase Max, you wrote this,
and I just want to give credit where it's due.
You could say a hyper virulent sperm.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
The seed is strong. Yeah, that was a Game of Thrones.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
There is another well known book I believe you reference
already been, which was called Sherwood Forest, Home of President
John Tyler, in which they make notes that he had
forty four grandchildren, five of which were named John. And
I just having just recently rewatched the nineteen seventies Disney
(32:45):
Robin Hood, I love the idea of living in Sherwood Forest.
It seems like a place for the proletariat, you know,
it seems like a place where like a band of
mary you know, ruffians hang out and have their fort
and steal from the rich.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
But not this Sherwood forrest. It would seem no.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And this all leads us to the grand mathematical oddity.
If we're playing along at home ridiculous historians, fifteen children.
Those fifteen children make forty four grandchildren, and five of
those are confusingly named John. This means that up until
(33:23):
just three years ago, two of the tenth president's grandchildren
were alive. They were alive while we were doing this show.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's wild man, the tenth President. That's a long time ago.
I don't understand. We're in seventeen ninety.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Yeah, that's pretty insane. Is that strong sperm? That's what
did it? It has life giving powers. You know, it's
that strong math too, So it obviously sperm in general
has life giving powers. That's sort of what it is,
but mystical imbued with a little more rutzba.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, so let's give you the names. Lyon Gardner Tyler, Junior,
grandson of the tenth President, Johnny T, passed away on
September twenty sixth, twenty twenty at the heartbreakingly young age
of ninety five.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Ninety five years young and gone too soon. Lyon's brother,
Harrison Ruffin Taylor, I love the name. Ruffin, by the way,
was born in nineteen twenty eight. Is still living, that's
right to this day, still living.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He is ninety five years old.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, exactly ninety five years young, ripe old age. But
he's still gets out there and mall walks. You know,
I'm sure, what is this guy up to? I'm intrigued,
really wild.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
He does a lot of a lot of EDM, a
lot of DJing, He's got some deep house, a little
bit of jungle, you.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Know, really into VR rhythm games. That's his whole thing.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And so we're going to call it a day, but
we want you to know, fellow ridiculous historians, Noel Max
and I went through more research we had compiled for this,
and we we're gonna bring it back in our continuing
clip show, which so far has ended up with us
(35:25):
doing like one piece of stuff we didn't get to
and I'm happy with that. I thought the nukes episode
was good.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh totally. And it's fine.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
We've got stuff that like ends up kind of clustered
around sort of themes, so it'll be really fun to
do this. I would love to add one last little
bit of trivia. I just found this before we took
a little off Mike moment. We mentioned the tagline Tippecanoe
and Tyler too, and we're talking about that this was
an egregious act of war criminality by the US and
(35:53):
defeating indigenous people and dare we say slaughtering them?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
We do say.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
But apparently there's a thing called the Typeic Canoe curse
or Tecumsa's curse, which is an urban legend that cursed
United States presidents voted into office in years that end
with zero that can be divided by twenty. Eighteen forty
President Harrison died in office from elling this. Eighteen sixty,
Lincoln assassinated, eighteen eighty, Garfield assassinated nineteen twenty. Harding died
(36:21):
in office after suffering a heart attack. Nineteen forty. Roosevelt
died during his fourth term. Nineteen sixty. Kennedy assassinated. Interesting,
didn't know about this, thought it worth mentioning, But yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Kind of an ornery, you.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
Know, spoiled brat type figure in politics. But I think
the lineage is interesting and I'll honestly how he came
to be in power is also interesting. The whole thing,
you know, I think it fits the bill for ridiculous history.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Also, one last thing I do want to point out.
It seems like the two grandchildren Lion Harrison, seemed to
be alright, dude, So it looks like, you know, it
seems like the terribleness has knock all of you down.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Their father as much. If you're interested in learning more about.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Him, find his William and Mary page that talks about
his time as president of the College of William Mary.
By the way, they all went to college with William
and Mary, very that old old.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Old dominion, because of course they did. And it's important
to know the sins of the parents, you're not the
sins of the child, right, So we're going to end
it there. Thank you as always, folks, so much for
tuning in. Thanks to our super producer and research associate
for this episode, mister Max Williams, as well as his
(37:43):
own brothers still alive Alex Williams, who composed this track.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Huge thanks to Chris frosciotis here in spirit. He's Jeff Coates.
Jonathan Strickland ever made the curse of strickland.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Rain in any year that ends with a number exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
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