Homes of Our Presidents

In many ways John Tyler was a playful man. (Perhaps in more ways than one; he had fifteen children with his two wives, Letitia and Julia.) He was still president when he bought his retirement home, and it was he who re-named it Sherwood Forest. He thought it was a well crafted “turn-of-phrase” since he was generally known as a political outlaw.

Tyler was the first vice president to take the presidency after his predecessor, William Henry Harrison died while in office. Harrison had served only 31 days of his term when he died of either typhoid or pneumonia. His passing was the cause of our first constitutional crisis regarding succession to the presidency.

Tyler’s years in office were laced with calamity and accident. His political standards were questioned – he was a firm advocate for state’s rights – and the animus was so intense that his own party members referred to Tyler as “His Accidency.” In the end the Whig party literally expelled him from their ranks.

Tyler left office in 1845 – sixteen years before the Civil War, but he did not leave politics. In April 1861 as the Civil War began, Tyler re-entered public life and sided with the Confederacy; he won an election for the CSA House of Representatives just before his death. President Tyler is the only American to hold our top executive’s job, whose death was not recognized in Washington, DC. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, but his casket is draped with a confederate flag. 

Oh, just in case you care, Sherwood Forest has a ghost. She is known as the Gray Lady. Those who have had encounters with her say she dresses in shades of gray and can be found in an up-stairs room in her rocking chair holding an infant child.