Julia Gardiner Tyler
Julia Gardiner Tyler’s life was part romance and part tragedy. Her courting by a president was marred by death and disaster, and, during the Civil War, she turned against the country she served as first lady.
Gardiner’s Island, where Julia was born on May 4, 1820, was owned by her wealthy family, who settled it in 1639. Gardiner was taught to be a proper, cultured young woman at Madame Chagary’s Institute for Young Ladies. Despite her education, she shocked high society in 1839 by posing as “the Rose of Long Island” for a dry-goods store advertisement. Her embarrassed parents sent her on a European tour while the scandal died down.
After returning, Gardiner spent the winter of 1841-2 with her family in Washington D.C. At a White House reception she met President John Tyler. The 51-year-old Virginian, who became president following William Henry Harrison’s death in 1841, was already married. His first lady had been crippled by a stroke, however, and after she died later in 1842, Tyler actively courted Gardiner.
On Feb. 28, 1844, the Gardiners joined President Tyler for an inspection of the warship, USS Princeton. Her father was one of seven people killed when one of the Princeton’s guns exploded. Four months later, on June 26, she married the president in a private ceremony in New York City.
Julia Gardiner Tyler embraced the role of first lady, although she preferred the title “Lady Presidentress.” She saw her role as hostess for well-publicized White House balls and receptions. Her most lasting contribution to the presidency was to establish “Hail to the Chief” as the music played when the president arrived at official functions.
After President Tyler finished his term, his family retired to the “Sherwood Forest” plantation near Richmond, where Julia would bear seven children. She now had charge of dozens of slaves. Slavery had been abolished in New York when Tayler was a child, but she saw nothing criminal about it. In a rare public statement, written in 1853, she defended slavery from criticism by an English duchess. She believed that Great Britain opposed slavery only to divide and weaken the U.S. She also claimed that most slaves lived better than poor whites who toiled for heartless employers in industrial cities.
The Tylers supported Virginia’s secession from the Union in 1861. A former president joined an enemy government when John Tyler was elected to the Confederate Congress. Nevertheless, after Tyler died in 1862, the Union army posted guards near Sherwood Forest to prevent looting, out of respect for the former first lady. Later that year, she moved to the safety of New York, but did so indirectly, via Bermuda, rather than swear allegiance to the Union.
In New York, Tyler openly expressed support for the Confederacy. She protested in the New York Post when Union troops finally overran Sherwood Forest in 1864. In 1865, her Staten Island home was ransacked amid rumors that she had flown the Confederate flag.
Tyler reclaimed Sherwood Forest after the war. Struggling financially in later life, she petitioned Congress for a federal pension. The pension helped ensure that the years before her death on July 10, 1889 were comfortable. Despite her controversial life, the nation recognized her place in history as a first lady.
For more information about Julia Gardiner Tyler and other first ladies, visit the National First Ladies’ Library online at www.firstladies.org.