Travel

By TERRY CANNON
Travel Editor

When it comes to prolific presidents, there aren’t many in the class with the nation’s 10th, John Tyler.

To prove this, just take a trip to Charles City, Va., and visit Sherwood Forest – Tyler’s home. You might be lucky enough to be given personal tour of the home by the president’s grandson.

That’s correct. His grandson.

Betty and David Couch of Tyler recently did just that as they were on a tour of the southern part of the U.S. Before arriving in Charles City, David arranged to meet Tyler’s grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the only living grandson of President John Tyler.

Harrison Tyler was born in 1928 to Sue Ruffin and Lyon Gardiner Tyler, the 13th son of the president. Harrison Tyler and his family still live in Sherwood Forest, touted by the Charles City tourist office as the longest wood-frame house in America.

According to David Couch, Harrison Tyler was more than accommodating to his visitors from the Rose City.

“He met us on the porch and spent the better part of an hour chatting with us,” Couch said. “He couldn’t have been nicer.”

Couch, a former Tyler Junior College Board trustee, also brought some important memorabilia from the Rose City to present to Harrison Tyler – a TJC pennant.

“TJC President Mike Metke has asked all the board of trustees and all employees of the college to pick up a pennant and take pictures of the places they’ve visited,” Couch said. “He (Harrison) put the pennant in the family living quarters and he told me he had visited Tyler twice.”

Couch added he had great things to say about TJC and asked “are the Apache Belles still there?”

President Tyler’s family history is extensive, to say the least.

Born in 1790, Tyler was married twice and fathered 15 children before he died in 1862. His first wife Letitia bore him eight children. She died in 1842 and two years later, the president married Julia Gardiner and seven more children arrived, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853.

Americans take for granted the smooth transition which takes place when a president dies or is removed from office. The vice president assumes the office, in keeping with the 25th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1967, which spells out the order of succession. Yet in 1841, when Tyler took over the presidency following Harrison’s death of pneumonia, no one in Washington was sure if Tyler had the legal authority to become the next president.

But Tyler decided he did, indeed, have the Constitutional authority and from that point on, the vice president was automatically considered the president upon the death of the president, which elevated vice presidents under Presidents Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.

Perhaps President Tyler is best remembered for two things: being the first president to assume the Oval Office after the death of a president – William Henry Harrison in office just a month – and pushing for the Republic of Texas to become a state.

Tylerites obviously have ties to the 10th president. The city and its oldest high school carry his name, but all Texans owe him a debt for his stance on statehood. He favored annexation, but the Whigs opposed it on the grounds it would upset the balance of northern and southern states as well as push the U.S. closer to war with Mexico, which had threatened war if the U.S. went ahead with annexation plans.

Tyler pushed lawmakers to bring Texas into the union through an adopted joint resolution. It passed and the day before he left office, the president sent word to his representative in Texas, Andrew Jackson Donelson, that annexation had been achieved.

After the U.S. Senate and House accepted the Texas state constitution, the resolution was signed by Tyler’s successor, James K. Polk on Dec. 29, 1845.

LOCAL CONNECTION: Former Tyler Junior College board trustee David Couch, right, presented President John Tyler's grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, a TJC pennant on a recent visit.
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