No perceptible change in Mrs. Tyler’s condition of health occurred until Friday, the 9th day of September, 1842. On the morning of that day, her family physician detected a change unhappily for the worse, and a threatened renewal of paralysis. He instantly called in consultation others of the faculty, and everything devised by the skill of the profession to ward off the fatal stroke was promptly applied. But all in vain. On the evening of the next day, Saturday, September the 10th, at eight o’clock, the hour came for her to be joined to her fathers. A pious communicant of the Church of Christ, innocent in soul as a little child, crowned with the virtues which had marked her useful and unselfish life, fearing and loving God, reverencing her husband, adoring and adored by her children—she passed into the heavenly kingdom palpitating with the immortal joys of a spirit released from every earthly pain and sorrow. On Sunday, the Executive Mansion stood arrayed in mourning, and the tolling of the bells of the city announced the sad visitation to those among the living. Every honor that the sincerest respect and the purest love and the sense of a bitter bereavement could suggest, was paid to her remains. A committee of the citizens of Washington conveyed her body, after it had laid in state in the East Room for several days, to the family burial-ground at the old paternal residence in New Kent county, and there, in the midst of a sorrowing assemblage of relatives and friends and neighbors who had known her from birth, the parting tears of her husband and her children, gushing up from the fountain of their hearts, were shed upon her coffin ere it was deposited in the earth, where reposed already the dust of her parents and of others she had loved, and who fondly loved her.
Thus lived and died Mrs. Letitia Tyler, wife of the last of the Virginia Presidents of the United States, a model of the exalted civilization of the “ancient commonwealth and dominion,” a representative of her sex worthy of their grateful memory, and an honor to the human family.
XIV.
JULIA GARDINER TYLER.
President John Tyler was married to Miss Julia Gardiner the 26th day of June, 1844, at the Church of the Ascension, New York city. Immediately after the wedding, the bridal party returned to the White House, where they held a grand reception in lieu of the usual wedding festivities. It was the first, and up to the present time, the only instance of the marriage of a President, and the affair created great excitement and interest throughout the United States, heightened doubtless by the recollection of the tragic death of the father of the bride, a few months previous.
Miss Gardiner was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman residing on Gardiner’s Island, and the eldest of three children. Her education, continued at home until her sixteenth year, was completed at the Chegary Institute, in New York city. Immediately after the termination of her school life, she accompanied her father to Europe. Returning from abroad after an extended tour, she visited, during the sitting of Congress, the National Capital, and there for the first time met the distinguished man to whom she was afterward married.
It was while on a visit to Washington in the winter of 1844, that Mr. Gardiner and his young daughter were invited by Captain Stockton to accompany a large party of the President’s friends to Alexandria, and on the return trip, when just opposite to the fort, all the gentlemen were invited on deck to witness the firing of the “peacemaker.” Many of the party, who were all partaking of a collation, responded to the invitation; among the number the father of Miss Gardiner. The explosion startled the President, who with the ladies had remained below, and in a moment the piercing cries of the wounded filled the hearts of the passengers with terror. Death had made fearful havoc, and the living waited in breathless anxiety for the announcement of the names of the victims.
The bodies were conveyed to the White House, where the funeral services were preached, and the last sad rites performed.
The following summer Miss Gardiner was married, and from that time until the close of her husband’s administration, a period of eight months, she did the honors of the Executive Mansion, performing her agreeable task with credit to herself and pleasure to her friends.
After President Tyler’s retirement from public life, he removed to his home in Virginia, where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred in Richmond, the 17th of January, 1862.
Of late years Mrs. Tyler has suffered pecuniary losses, and in the winter of 1879 she petitioned and received from Congress a pension. She has resided for the past few years in Washington City, and at present (1881) is living in Georgetown. A devoted Catholic, she finds it pleasant to be a resident of that retired and peaceful place, near to Washington, and yet not in it.