Harrison Ruffin Tyler was the son of Lyon Gardiner Tyler, the 13th of President John Tyler's 15 children.
Sherwood Forest Plantation FoundationHarrison Ruffin Tyler died on May 25, 2025, at the age of 96.
Many Americans can trace their lineage back to a United States president, but most of them are several generations removed from their ancestor. Harrison Ruffin Tyler, who died last month at the age of 96, had a much closer connection. He was the grandson of 10th U.S. President John Tyler.
A 19th-century president whose term lasted from 1841 to 1845, John Tyler had 15 children, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., Harrison’s father. These three generations of Tyler men stretch across an impressive breadth of American history — 235 years, to be exact — from the ascension of George Washington as the nation’s first president to our present day.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, The Grandson Of John Tyler
Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born into his famous American family on Nov. 9, 1928. He was the son of Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. (1853 to 1935) and the grandson of President John Tyler (1790 to 1862). Their family tree runs parallel to the history of the United States, as John Tyler was born about a year after George Washington became the nation’s first president in 1789.
But how is such a thing possible?
As Harrison Ruffin Tyler told New York Magazine in 2012, his close genetic connection to the White House is largely due to the fact that both his father and his grandfather married twice.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, right, with his brother, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., and his father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., who was the 13th child of President John Tyler.
“Both my grandfather — the president — and my father were married twice,” he explained. “And they had children by their first wives. And their first wives died, and they married again and had more children. And my father was 75 when I was born, his father was 63 when he was born.”
Indeed, John Tyler was married to two women: Letitia Christian, who died in 1842, and Julia Gardiner, who was 30 years his junior when they married in 1844. The president had 15 children, including Lyon Gardiner Sr., who, in turn, also married two women: Anne Baker, who died in 1921, and Sue Ruffin, whom he wed in 1923. Lyon Gardiner Sr. had six children with his two wives, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., who died in 2020, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler.
“[I]t does get very confusing,” Harrison Tyler remarked of his sprawling family tree to New York Magazine. “I really do not know — it’s amazing how families drift apart. When I was a child, I did know most of the descendants, but as you get more generations down the line, it’s hard to keep track of everybody.”
The same could be said of John Tyler, who, in the long line of American presidents, is often forgotten.
John Tyler, The President Called ‘His Accidency’
Though many Americans may have forgotten John Tyler, he had one of the most unusual presidencies in U.S. history. In 1840, he was elected as vice president alongside William Henry Harrison. But just one month after Harrison became president in March 1841, he died of pneumonia.
No president had died in office before, and many politicians argued about the best way forward. Some thought that John Tyler should be the “acting” president, serving in a caretaking role until another election could be held. But Tyler quickly and forcefully assumed the role of president, an important moment in American history that set a crucial succession precedent. However, some continued to refer to Tyler as “His Accidency.”
Public DomainJohn Tyler played a small but important role in American history, though he’s been largely forgotten today.
As president, Tyler’s fierce embrace of state’s rights led to a schism between him and his party, the Whigs. They not only attempted to impeach him but later expelled him from the party. His most important achievement in office was the annexation of Texas in 1845, but, as a politician in exile, Tyler lost his race for reelection while running on a third-party ticket.
After leaving the White House, Tyler aligned himself with the nascent Confederacy. Though he attempted to prevent the Civil War with a Peace Convention in 1861, he eventually supported the secession of his home state of Virginia and was elected to the Confederate Congress. However, John Tyler died in 1862 before he could take his seat.
The New York Times subsequently called Tyler “the most unpopular public man that had ever held any office in the United States,” and Abraham Lincoln said nothing about his predecessor’s passing, a rarity in U.S. politics.
Ultimately, John Tyler’s greatest legacy in the United States may not be his presidency, but his family. Though his term in office is all but forgotten, many are fascinated by the long branches of his family tree, which stretched all the way from 1790 until today.
After reading about Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last surviving grandson of President John Tyler, discover fascinating facts about all the U.S. presidents. Or go inside the stories of presidential sex scandals that stunned the nation.
