Harrison Ruffin Tyler, Last Living Grandson of U.S. President John Tyler, Passes Away at 96

Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last living grandson of John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, passed away peacefully at his residence in Richmond, Virginia, on Sunday at the age of 96. His grandfather’s presidency, which lasted from 1841 to 1845, occurred shortly after George Washington took office more than two centuries ago.

The executive director of Sherwood Forest Plantation, a private foundation managed by the Tyler family, confirmed Mr. Tyler’s death.

Beginning in 2012, Mr. Tyler experienced several minor strokes and was subsequently diagnosed with dementia. In recent years, his son, William Bouknight Tyler, took responsibility for overseeing the family’s ancestral estate along the James River.

A retired businessman, Harrison Ruffin Tyler and his late older brother, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., who died in 2020 at age 95, were sons of Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., a long-serving president of the College of William & Mary. Their grandfather, President John Tyler, is remembered for advocating the annexation of Texas during America’s westward expansion and for the Whig Party’s famous 1840 campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.”

The Tyler family exemplified a unique genealogical phenomenon through multiple generations marked by longevity and late fatherhood, resulting in a lineage that spanned nearly the entire breadth of American history.