Last Living Grandson of Our 10th President Dies

Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last living grandson of President John Tyler, has died at 96, closing an extraordinary family chapter that stretched from the White House of the 1840s into the modern day. His grandfather, the nation's 10th president, was born in 1790 and served from 1841 to 1845—a time before the Civil War. President Tyler entered the White House following the 1841 death of President William Henry Harrison, becoming the first vice president to succeed a president who died in office. His link to the present came through unconventional family circumstance. He fathered 15 children via two marriages, having many of his youngest children in his 50s and 60s after marrying a much younger second wife, Julia Gardiner, per CBS News.

Tyler's 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, born when his father was 63, continued this pattern by fathering children late in life as well. Harrison was one of two sons born in the 1920s to Lyon's second wife, Sue Ruffin Tyler, when Lyon was in his 70s. Harrison died Sunday, according to a statement from his family. Based in Virginia, he co-founded ChemTreat, a water treatment company, and played an active role in the preservation of Sherwood Forest—his grandfather's home—and Fort Pocahontas, a nearby Civil War site. In a tribute, a Sherwood Forest official noted that he would be remembered for "his considerable charm, generosity and unfailing good humor." (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)