The two wings created a long narrow house with a unified, symmetrical façade. He added a covered hyphen to connect the east wing with an existing kitchen and laundry and built a new balancing west wing containing an office and ballroom, reportedly designed by Tyler for dancing the Virginia reel. One and one-half story wings already existed on either side of the two and one-half-story main block. Polk, the Democratic nominee, and retired to Sherwood Forest.īy this time, Tyler had already expanded the original plantation house. In 1844, Tyler threw his support to James K. At the very end of his term, Congress passed a resolution offering Texas the opportunity to join the Union. Tyler’s last and probably most important achievement was to facilitate the annexation of Texas. It reorganized the United States Navy, established the Weather Bureau, and ended the Seminole War. It settled a long-standing dispute over the boundary between the United States and Canada and signed the first commercial treaty with China. Tyler’s administration managed to accomplish a great deal in spite of its political difficulties. Their marriage in New York City on June 26, 1844, marked another first, the first president married while in office. A few months later, Tyler began courting 23-year-old Julia Gardiner, a beautiful and wealthy New Yorker. Letitia Christian Tyler, the President's first wife, died in the White House in September 1842. They pushed through a resolution of censure in the House of Representatives and even denied him money to maintain the White House. The Whigs expelled him from the party and considered impeachment, again for the first time. At one point, all but one of his cabinet members resigned. He vetoed many bills enacted by the congressional majority and was the first president ever to have his veto overridden. Because he opposed many of the policies of the party that nominated him, his administration was an intensely controversial one. Although called “His Accidency” by his opponents, he refused to serve as acting president, insisting on all the powers of a duly elected chief executive. Tyler was also the first vice president to reach the presidency. Tyler was only 51, the youngest president ever up to that point. Harrison caught pneumonia on Inauguration Day and died a month later. The pair known as “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” shared a short time in office together. The Whig Party nominated him for vice president in 1840, with William Henry Harrison, to appeal to states’ rights southerners. By 1836, he abandoned the Democratic Republican Party, resigning from the Senate and becoming at least a nominal Whig, though here again he disagreed with many of the party’s policies. Elected to the United States Senate in 1827, he backed Andrew Jackson for president but became increasingly dissatisfied with his policies. After leaving the House, he returned to state politics, serving as governor from 1825-1827. Elected to the United States House of Representative in 1816 as a Democratic Republican, he supported the proslavery, strict constructionist, and states’ right positions that he would hold to for the rest of his career. He studied law and soon entered politics, serving in the Virginia legislature from 1811 to 1816. John Tyler was born in 1790 at Greenway plantation, only about three miles away from Sherwood Forest. He named his plantation “Sherwood Forest” because he considered himself a political outlaw-like Robin Hood. Expelled from the Whig Party that nominated him, he was the first president threatened with impeachment. His major goal as president was the annexation of Texas, which occurred shortly after he left office. Tyler was the first vice president of the United States to succeed to the presidency and set an important precedent by claiming the full powers of that position. He expanded the original 1780 frame plantation house into one of the longest private residences in Virginia-300 feet long but only one room deep. John Tyler bought this 1,200-acre plantation in 1842, when he was still serving as 10th president of the United States, and it was his retirement home from 1845 until his death in 1862. Virginia Department of Historic Resources
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