content
Letitia Christian, the future Mrs. Tyler, was born on November 12, 1790 at Cedar Grove Plantation, in New Kent County, Virginia. Her father was Robert Christian, a planter and member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Her mother was Mary Eaton Browne Christian. Letitia had three brothers and three sisters, but the birth order of the siblings is unclear. She had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and was raised an Episcopalian.
No documentation of Letitia Tyler's early life appears to exist and therefore nothing tangible is known of her life before marriage. At 22 years of age she married 23 year old lawyer John Tyler at her father's home at Cedar Grover Plantation on March 29, 1813. Tyler, like Letitia's father, was also a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. The couple met at a private party on a plantation near the Christians. The wedding followed a five-year engagement. One letter from Tyler's to his fiancé survives, and it suggests that the union was genuine and loving, but somewhat restrained by Letitia Tyler's conservative nature. Shortly after their wedding, her parents died and she received a substantial inheritance which permitted Tyler to pursue a political career. He was elected to the U.S. Congress three years into their marriage and served from 1817 to 1821. The couple moved to increasingly larger houses.
This union produced seven children three sons and four daughters: Mary Tyler Jones (April 15, 1815 - June 17, 1847); Robert Tyler (September 9, 1816 - December 3, 1877); John Tyler, Jr. (April 17, 1819 - January 26, 1896); Letitia Christian Tyler Semple (May 11, 1821 - December 28, 1907); Elizabeth Tyler Waller (1820 -1870); Alice Tyler Denison (March 23, 1827 - June 8, 1854), and Tazewell Tyler (December 6, 1830 - January 8, 1874).
Throughout her husband's career, Letitia Tyler remained at home, raising her children and overseeing the running of their homes. She also was responsible for the family investments. She was a very devout Episcopalian, and her religious beliefs would not allow her to place their daughters in the fashionable Georgetown Academy for girls in Washington, D.C. because it was a Catholic institution. While her husband served as Governor of Virginia, she presided as the First Lady of Virginia in Richmond, from 1825 to 1827. As a U.S. Senate wife, she spent the social season of 1828-1829 in Washington, D.C., living in the capital. After resigning from the U.S. Senate in 1836, Tyler moved his family to Williamsburg, Virginia.
In 1839, Letitia Tyler suffered a stroke which left her partially paralyzed. A year later, when chosen as the vice presidential candidate, Tyler intended to conduct his work from his home in Williamsburg, so he could be near Letitia. Tyler often wrote of his reliance on her input in a variety of decisions. Their daughter Mary Tyler Jones wrote "I have frequently heard our father say that he rarely failed to consult her judgment in the midst of difficulties and troubles, and that she invariably led him to the best conclusion."
Letitia Tyler was at their home in Williamsburg, Virginia when Fletcher Webster, the son of Secretary of State Daniel Webster and chief clerk of the State Department arrived with the news of President William Henry Harrison's death. John Tyler immediately left for the capital city. His swearing-in ceremony took place at the Indian Queen Hotel in Washington, D.C. Letitia Tyler was not present at the ceremony. Robert Tyler, serving as his father’s secretary, followed a week later with his wife Priscilla. The other children - married daughter Letitia Semple, single daughter Elizabeth, son John, Jr., younger daughter Alice, younger son Tazewell - came to Washington in late May and brought their mother Letitia Tyler with them. Married daughter Mary Jones remained in Virginia.
Letitia Tyler's health stabilized and while in the White House she largely remained seated in her room, her Bible and prayer books being the only reading at her side table. She encouraged her family to enjoy the social opportunities that came to them as the presidential family despite her inability to join them. She also directed that many charitable contributions be made from her own personal wealth to the poor of Washington, although it is not known if there was any specific charity or group to which her donations were made.
The political turmoil of the Tyler administration included two consecutive nights in August 1841 when a mob surrounding the house with torches, banging drums, blowing horns, shouting disparaging remarks about the President and burning him in effigy to protest his veto of a bank bill. The protests aggravated the delicate First Lady's condition. The family experienced some financial pressures as well as a stubborn Congress insisted that the President pay all expenses out of his own pocket.
On February 7 1842, Letitia Tyler made her only intently public appearance in the state rooms of the White House as First Lady at the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth to William N. Waller. One account suggests that she was brought with the family to the theater. Later that year, the First Lady suffered a second stroke. She apparently was still able to speak because a letter that the President wrote to his daughter Mary Jones stated that the First Lady implored her to move to the White House or at least visit as soon as possible. In another letter written in August of 1842, she asked for a visit from her son Robert and his wife Priscilla who were visiting her sister in New York. But by the time the young couple arrived back at the White House it was too late; the First Lady had died on September 10, 1842. She had died in her sleep. Her's sister Elizabeth Douglas and Elizabeth's daughter Lizzie Waller arrived in Washington from their homes near Williamsburg, Virginia in time to see Letitia Tyler before she died. Letitia Tyler was the first First Lady to die during her husband's presidency and the first to die at the White House.
As the first incumbent presidential wife to die, Letitia Tyler's funeral was a prominent event. Newspapers carried details of her death, funeral and burial plans. Her coffin lay in state in the East Room, and an "official committee of the citizens of Washington" accompanied her casket from the White House to her final resting place in Virginia. The city's bells were tolled in her honor.
Prior to Tyler's second marriage, the duties of White House hostess were carried out by his daughter-in-law Priscilla Cooper Tyler and his daughter Letitia "Letty" Tyler Semple. Priscilla Cooper Tyler served as the official hostess of the White House during the first three years of the Tyler Administration, from approximately April, 1841 to early spring of 1843. Among the many notable visitors whom she entertained included members of Napoleon's family and Charles Dickens. For the general public, she initiated summer Marine Band concerts on the White House South Lawn. She had been a professional actress, having first gone on the stage at 17 years old. She was playing Desdemona in Richmond to her father's Othello, when a member of the audience gave a rousing standing ovation and came backstage to meet her. It was Robert Tyler, the eldest son of John Tyler. The two were married on September 12, 1839 in Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Letitia Tyler was very fond of Priscilla, dismissing any notions of her being undesirable because she had worked as an actor, then considered by many in polite society to be a scandalous profession, especially for a woman. Priscilla accompanied her father-in-law on an official presidential tour during the summer of 1843.
Robert Tyler moved to Philadelphia in March of 1844, to practice law, and Priscilla went with him. Tyler's daughter Letitia "Letty" Semple assumed the role of White House hostess. With the start of the Civil War, both Robert and Priscilla Tyler declared themselves loyal to the South and moved to Richmond. Priscilla died in Montgomery, Alabama, on 29 December, 1889.
The spring 1844 social season at the White House was presided over by President Tyler's daughter Letitia "Letty" Semple. In February of 1839, eighteen year old Letty Tyler had married Captain James Semple, U.S.N. of Virginia. From the start their marriage was stormy and the President sent Semple on a three year assignment at sea as a means of postponing any potential divorce between Semple and his daughter. Tyler instructed Letty to "Show no favoritism, accept no gifts, and receive no seekers after office.” The President held two dinners each week in the social season for about forty Congressional guests, and one public reception.
Letty Semple was shocked and hurt when, in June 1844, her father remarried and she was no longer the hostess of the White House, replaced by a woman her own age. Letty Semple forever resented her stepmother and there would be no reconciliation. Even when the widowed Julia Tyler helped James Semple during a difficult financial period, Letty Semple was not grateful, and wrote her husband, telling him that while they would not divorce, she no longer considered him her spouse. Years later she was invited to the White House by Lucy Hayes, who befriended her. She was a frequent White House guest of the President and Mrs. McKinley, and Ida McKinley often put her horse and carriage at Letty Semple's disposal. She died on 28 December, 1907, during a trip to Baltimore, Maryland.