Getting Permission From President’s Grandson
President Tyler’s original burial spot.
Photos courtesy Andy Chandler
Dateline Charles City, Va. The 2020 September morning in the James Peninsula in Virginia was interrupted by a stern voice: “What are you doing here? We’re closed til 9.”
I glanced at my watch; 8:55 a.m. “Seriously? Five minutes?” I gave her a Breakfast Club “get real” look.
“What are you doing here anyway? I should call the sheriff on you.”
That’s a really good question. During my visits to presidential sites in Virginia, I wanted to visit two of the plantations along the James River. Berkeley 100, birthplace of William Henry Harrison, and Sherwood Forest, home of John Tyler. My wife Marcia and I were in the driveway at Sherwood.
By then another car had pulled up and two men, the site director and a security guard got out. We explained our situation and I explained that the porch was where John Tyler learned he’d become President of the United States; bringing on the first presidential transition by death.
Throughout history, the death of a non-hereditary leader brought war and chaos. This was peaceful.
The director realized we were serious, and we both relaxed. It was a few months after George Floyd in Minneapolis, and sites along the James River had been receiving arson and death threats. I told him I understood the caution, but we’re just history nerds.
He got on the phone and spoke with Harrison Tyler. The last name was not a coincidence. Harrison Tyler is the grandson of President Tyler. Ignoring COVID restrictions, Tyler instructed him to let us tour the house. I yelled out “thank you sir.” He replied back ,”ya’ll enjoy now.”
Sherwood is, at 300 feet, the longest framed house in America. Longer than the White House. President Tyler expanded it to make room for his ever-growing family. At 15 children between two marriages, he had the most children of any U.S. President.
Sherwood is unusual: The Tyler family still lives there. Near the back entranceway, is the family cemetery with an empty plot: John Tyler was supposed to be buried there, but his death in Richmond as a Confederate Congressman at the beginning of 1862, and President Jefferson Davis’s wish that he be given a Confederate funeral, meant that Tyler was buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond and not Sherwood. Tyler is the only U.S. President buried under a foreign flag.
The front porch was the scene of one of the more forgotten, yet significant presidential events: the first presidential transition brought on by a death.
Only a month into his term, on April 4, 1841, President William Henry Harrison died. Harrison’s Secretary of State Daniel Webster’s son Fletcher was dispatched to find Vice President Tyler and bring him back to D.C. to assume office. In a 24-hour Homeric Odyssey that saw horses, boats and trains, Webster found himself pounding furiously at the door of the house. A groggy Tyler, allegedly still in his pajamas, answered the door as the vice president and learned he was going to be president. After hosting Webster for breakfast, Tyler set off to Washington.
Though little known, Tyler set the precedence of a vice president becoming president 100 years before the 25th Amendment.