THIS WEEK in 1841, on April 6, 183 years ago, John Tyler took the oath of office and, at 51 years old, became America’s youngest president at the time. His boss, President William Henry Harrison, named for Prince William Henry of Orange, Dutch stadtholder Willem III, later King William III of England, had died suddenly only one month into his presidency.
Tyler was at home somewhere in the Virginia woods that day, and a courier who came to bring him the news found him on his hands and knees in the hallway, with one of his eight children on his back. The Tyler family hurried to Washington.
Mrs. Tyler died there not much later, and so John remarried a very much younger woman, Julia Gardiner, descendant of the Schellings family of Amsterdam and the Deurcant and Van Boshuizen families of Woerden. Bride Julia gave birth to seven more babies, and sure enough, today, in Virginia, alive and kicking is still a grandson of the man who became president 183 years ago. His name is Harrison Tyler, age 95. His oma would now be 203, gramps 234.
Grandson Harrison and grandmother Julia
