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The 10th President's Grandson is Alive Today · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for our own commander
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  Speaker 1: in chief production wise, mister Max Williams.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hodda, what's the big boss? Yea, hey you guys, I
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  Speaker 2: wrote a campaign song. You want to hear it? Hell,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: let's hear it.
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  Speaker 3: He's the man man who is named John Tyler and
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  Speaker 3: Jewish presidents, but we may.
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  Speaker 2: That's all. I think it's there. I think it's great.
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  Speaker 4: No, I think if it just kind of goes for
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  Speaker 4: a little bit and stops and never achieves anything in
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  Speaker 4: the song, it's very adequate to describe John Tyler.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Max, though, I feel like that's a that's a
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  Speaker 1: bit judgy. We're in the brainstorming portion of the songwriting.
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  Speaker 1: I am Ben, you are Noll, and we are here,
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  Speaker 1: indeed to explore the life and time of John Tyler,
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  Speaker 1: who is unanimously praised as a person who is at
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  Speaker 1: one point president.
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  Speaker 2: So it took the canoe and Tyler too, how about that?
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  Speaker 1: Also, old Kindercoll, You know, debatable etymology of the world's
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  Speaker 1: most popular word, which is okay, that's nuts. We could
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  Speaker 1: I want to doogy so I'm sort of an all
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  Speaker 1: right kind of guy. I want to do an etymology show,
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  Speaker 1: so bad.
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  Speaker 2: Just if you could just do a series, man, who
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  Speaker 2: knew you? Anyway, we already got a show. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny because people are people are
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  Speaker 1: always attempting to rank the best presidents, and it's a
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  Speaker 1: small sample size. There aren't that many presidents yet because
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  Speaker 1: the United States is a relatively young country in the
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  Speaker 1: grand scheme of things. But as our research associate, also
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  Speaker 1: named Max Williams, points out at the very top of
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  Speaker 1: our show today, John Tyler is not going to be
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  Speaker 1: in the top ten best president's list anywhere.
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  Speaker 5: Well, unless you're talking about the top ten forgettable presidents
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  Speaker 5: from Time magazine.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where it's going.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah he makes that he makes that list.
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  Speaker 1: I forgot about that list.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he makes that list with a plum.
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  Speaker 5: He's what you might call a bit of a do nothing,
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  Speaker 5: sort of an outfielder type president.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, let me let me rephrase that.
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  Speaker 5: I don't mean to mili professional outfielders, but you know,
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  Speaker 5: I was made an outfielder in Little league.
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  Speaker 2: That's usually where they put the turds. You know, they
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  Speaker 2: don't really do anything.
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  Speaker 4: I was an outfield as well, so I got told, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: it gets hit to you in right field, Max, They're
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  Speaker 4: they're going to reach base no matter what your hand.
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  Speaker 2: I was.
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  Speaker 1: I was left field and it was awesome. I learned
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  Speaker 1: a lot in ecology. Yeah, I learned a lot about
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  Speaker 1: the local ecology of the ballfield.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, there's.
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  Speaker 1: An argument that John Tyler was maybe that way. He
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  Speaker 1: did earn his vice presidency based almost entirely on the
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  Speaker 1: word of mouth campaign slogan tip a Canoe and Tyler too.
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  Speaker 1: And when William Henry Harrison passed away, folks started calling
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  Speaker 1: Tyler his accidency.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, even in the little jingle,
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  Speaker 5: he's an afterthought. But any inside, and know what the
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  Speaker 5: hell Tip a Canoe comes from? What kind of nickname
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  Speaker 5: is that I've never fully understood. I'm sure a cursory
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  Speaker 5: Google would answer the question, but I prefer to ask
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  Speaker 5: it in an analog fashion.
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  Speaker 4: It was a battle that William Henry Harrison had fought
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  Speaker 4: against a local native tribal and you know one of
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  Speaker 4: these things where they massacred like hundreds of.
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  Speaker 5: Natives, Digitople killer yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 4: Let's put that in the slogan that was a winning
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  Speaker 4: issue in eighteen forty.
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  Speaker 2: Let's just say, yeah, it sure was.
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  Speaker 1: And there are a lot of ridiculous things about John Tyler.
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  Speaker 1: He was the first president in history to become president
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  Speaker 1: without a general election to that position. His own party
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  Speaker 1: also really didn't like him, sort of the way that
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party a few decades back didn't care for
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  Speaker 1: Ralph Nader, and mostly his own party thought he was
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  Speaker 1: too heavy with the vetos. They thought he had a
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  Speaker 1: lead foot for the vetos, and eventually almost everybody, everybody
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  Speaker 1: except for one person in his presidential cabinet resigned. For
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  Speaker 1: any fans of Bill Clinton, Tyler was the first president
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  Speaker 1: to have articles of impeachment filed against him, and they
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  Speaker 1: did not come from his political opponents. They came from
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  Speaker 1: his own party. Wow, it'll be your own people.
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  Speaker 2: A bit of an encomposition.
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  Speaker 5: He also annexed Texas, which is a bit of a
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  Speaker 5: move right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he really did, he did that thing, He annexed Texas.
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  Speaker 1: Af However, that's not even the most ridiculous nor especially
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  Speaker 1: notable stuff about the guy. This episode is about something
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  Speaker 1: much more bizarre, and so maybe we open it up
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  Speaker 1: by learning a little bit more about John Tyler before
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  Speaker 1: he becomes potus.
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  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, he was born with a spoon made of
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  Speaker 5: some precious metal firmly in his mouth. Can't speak to
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  Speaker 5: the actual medal, but definitely a bit of a one
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  Speaker 5: percenter throwing off some serious landed gentry vibes. He led
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  Speaker 5: a life that kind of blazed the trail towards this
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  Speaker 5: level of political influence. There's a quote from William Freeling
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  Speaker 5: in his biography of John Tyler called Life Before the
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  Speaker 5: Presidency where he said John Tyler's rise to the highest
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  Speaker 5: office in the nation signaled the last gasp of old
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  Speaker 5: Virginia aristocracy in the White House. So maybe that's good
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  Speaker 5: that it was the last gasp, because it does feel
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  Speaker 5: like he was a bit of an incompetent to some degree,
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  Speaker 5: and that usually happens when things are not a meritocracy
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  Speaker 5: rather but a what do you call that cacristocracy? Sure,
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  Speaker 5: just political dynasties and just kind of like these certain
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  Speaker 5: colleges and certain types of social circles that lead to
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  Speaker 5: folks pursuing these types of offices, and it's not necessarily
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  Speaker 5: that they actually their hearts and minds are in the
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  Speaker 5: right place.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So there is an oligarchical, heavily hierarchical nature to this.
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  Speaker 1: His family is old, old, old for Americans, at least
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  Speaker 1: they go back to the sixteen fifties. And so this
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  Speaker 1: guy has a weird coincidence in retrospect. His buddy William
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  Speaker 1: Henry Harrison was born in that same county, and both
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  Speaker 1: of their fathers at one point served as governors of Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: So John the Elder, John Tyler's dad, the President's dad,
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  Speaker 1: and Mary Armistead Tyler raised eight kids, and they raised
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  Speaker 1: them in that narrow, oligarchical way. You are meant to
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  Speaker 1: be the upper class. John Tyler, by the way, was
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  Speaker 1: a homie of Thomas Jefferson, who would later also be
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  Speaker 1: famous in American history, and John Tyler the Patriarch. He
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  Speaker 1: owned a tobacco plantation, and he owned a lot of
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  Speaker 1: enslaved people, dozens of enslaved people. When he wasn't enslaving people,
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  Speaker 1: he was also a judge at the US Circuit Court
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  Speaker 1: there in Richmond.
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  Speaker 5: Wow, he was, as you might imagine, a big fan
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  Speaker 5: of states rights, but not human rights, well exactly, but
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  Speaker 5: states rights. I don't know that seems to be the
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  Speaker 5: rally and cry in these days of the folks who ended.
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  Speaker 2: Up on the wrong side of history. I mean it's
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  Speaker 2: hardcore loss cause narrative, states rights. That's right, that's.
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  Speaker 5: Right, And I mean, you know, look at it, looking
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  Speaker 5: at it now through a modern lens, I think there
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  Speaker 5: are obviously certain things that are better determined on a
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  Speaker 5: state level rather than like a broad strokes approach federal stuff.
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  Speaker 5: But I mean, in general, this is like a dog
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  Speaker 5: whistle the states right stuff at the time, For like.
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  Speaker 2: We want to keep slaves.
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  Speaker 1: He was mad about the Constitution. The President's dad was
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  Speaker 1: mad that the Constitution was going to be a thing.
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  Speaker 1: He was worried it might give the hoi polloi the
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  Speaker 1: proletariat rights that he thought should be preserved for the
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  Speaker 1: upper echalons of society.
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  Speaker 5: So not only did he want to hold on to
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  Speaker 5: with an iron fist, his you know, human capital, his slaves,
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  Speaker 5: but he also wanted to disempower as much as possible
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  Speaker 5: anybody that he saw as beneath him.
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  Speaker 1: I bet he would have a lively conversation about whether
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  Speaker 1: or not the Irish were fully human.
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  Speaker 2: Ways.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, so John obviously grew up surrounded by this kind
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  Speaker 5: of talk. And when he was just seven, his mom,
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  Speaker 5: who I'm presuming was the good influence, you know, the
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  Speaker 5: better angel, passed away from a stroke.
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  Speaker 2: Probably not.
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  Speaker 5: She was terrible too, who knows. I'm just trying to
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  Speaker 5: editorialize year a little bit. But he went to local schools,
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  Speaker 5: as was the custom. At the age of twelve, he
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  Speaker 5: entered a I guess what you would call like a
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  Speaker 5: prep school, but this was a division of the College
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  Speaker 5: of William and Mary, which I think is still very
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  Speaker 5: much a well regarded university.
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  Speaker 2: Oldest college in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Again, and they're still doing good work.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He So he goes to College of William and Mary
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  Speaker 1: and eventually he graduates when he's only seventeen. It's eighteen
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  Speaker 1: oh seven. Now he gets admitted to the Virginia bar
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen oh nine. The same year his father, famously
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  Speaker 1: a man of the people, becomes the governor of Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: So he and his dad, his power familius, moved to Richmond,
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  Speaker 1: and of course you got connections, you got nepotism, you
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  Speaker 1: got networking. He immediately gets a job. John Tyler, the
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  Speaker 1: younger call him junior in this why not it'll get confusing.
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  Speaker 4: We definitely are going to have more John Tyler's than
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  Speaker 4: we don't to do with this episode.
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  Speaker 1: It's gonna be like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Shout
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  Speaker 1: out one hundred years of Solitude, all right. So anyway,
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  Speaker 1: he gets this job. The nation's first attorney general is
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  Speaker 1: a dude named Edmund Randolph, and he hires John Tyler
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  Speaker 1: the younger, quick, fast, and in a hurry. And immediately
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  Speaker 1: everybody says, guys, he doesn't just want to be a lawyer.
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  Speaker 1: He wants to enter the world of politics.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I mean again, that's sort of like the what you
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  Speaker 5: shoot for if you want to go beyond lawyer.
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  Speaker 2: That's sort of the prerequisite, right.
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  Speaker 5: It seems like most of the folks that enter civil
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  Speaker 5: service quote unquote do have some sort of background in
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  Speaker 5: the law, or at least at the levels of that
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  Speaker 5: service that allows you to kind of feather your nest
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  Speaker 5: and the nests of your old money cronies.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it came to pass that after just
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  Speaker 1: two years at the law firm, Tyler uses his boss's
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  Speaker 1: connections to get a seat in state government. He joins
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  Speaker 1: the Virginia House of Delegates, he is twenty one years old.
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  Speaker 1: And then immediately he leads a campaign to I guess,
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  Speaker 1: sort of admonish or shame other legislators who supported the
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  Speaker 1: Bank of the United States. And he said, this is
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  Speaker 1: too much power, it's too much nationalism. We are all
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  Speaker 1: about states' rights. And unfortunately, you know, his father passed
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  Speaker 1: away at this time, and so Tyler inherited a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the estate, including enslaved people.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, he inherited.
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  Speaker 5: Also, it seems his father's ideas about states rights and
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  Speaker 5: also about holding slaves. He had a weird thing that
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  Speaker 5: he did where he wanted to outlaw slave trade in
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  Speaker 5: the district of Columbia, but opposed abolishing it without the
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  Speaker 5: consent of Maryland and Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of a half measures behind them, you know. And
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  Speaker 1: and also the whole time, you guys, I'm sure have
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  Speaker 1: we've all heard the myth about the seventh son of
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  Speaker 1: a seventh son. I have a cousin like that, and
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  Speaker 1: he's insufferable. I hope you're listening. And so this so
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  Speaker 1: Tyler is he comes from a family of eight children.
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  Speaker 1: He himself is going to go on and have seven children.
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  Speaker 1: They're they're doing a lot reproduction wise and his wife,
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  Speaker 1: Letitia Christian she is more of an introvert, and she's
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  Speaker 1: more of a homemaker and so as as she's raising
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  Speaker 1: these seven kids, as her husband is making all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of policy that will affect people for generations, he's just
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  Speaker 1: kind of not at home. Actually, it's like logistically interesting
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  Speaker 1: that they had seven kids.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like he's like a you're like one of
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  Speaker 5: those cops. It's always on the case. You know, I can't.
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  Speaker 5: I can't come home, Honey, I can't. I won't be
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  Speaker 5: home for dinner tonight. I got to catch the bad guys.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: I've been rewatching The Shield, which I think is a
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: really great show that really holds up with Michael Chickliss.
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  Speaker 5: He's in a similar situation. Totally bad guy, different flavor
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  Speaker 5: of bad than John Tyler. But yeah, I mean he
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: really is well for better or for worse. Spending a
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: lot of time at the office. One would hope for
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  Speaker 5: better that he would become like better at his job,
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  Speaker 5: but it would seem not.
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  Speaker 2: It would seem not, so he just maybe didn't want
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  Speaker 2: to go home.
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  Speaker 1: He also liked the wheeling. He liked the dealing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I love that you're pointing out his odd stance on DC,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in Maryland and Virginia being part of that.
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  Speaker 1: He also was voting against tariffs, and then he voted
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  Speaker 1: against South Carolina trying to nullify terrorists.
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  Speaker 2: He was just sort of he.
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  Speaker 1: Was one of those. He wasn't a yes and dude.
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  Speaker 1: He was a no but dude, an obstructivist, and he
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  Speaker 1: appears to have had some crises of conscience. In eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty six, the Senate asked him to change his vote
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: on some resolutions that were censoring President Jackson for removing
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: money from the Bank of the United States. And they said,
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  Speaker 1: reverse your vote. Yeah, they said, revers your vote, John,
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  Speaker 1: And he said I will not, and they said yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you should though, and he said I quit. So he
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  Speaker 1: quit the Senate, one of the most prestigious jobs in
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  Speaker 1: the United States then and today.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yes, yes, that's right.
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  Speaker 5: Whether he knew it or not, though it would seem
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  Speaker 5: that dying on this particular hill was a positive for
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  Speaker 5: him and earned him some street crowd with the opposing party,
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  Speaker 5: the Whig Party, which in the year eighteen forty shot
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: him over a sweet nomination for Vice president in the
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: hopes that his southern charms and Wiles might attract some
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: of that voter block.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all about it's all about unifying that voting
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: block right, getting as many people as possible to vote
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: for your ticket. We might not ordinarily like this president,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: but we do love the VP. We don't like this
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: VP necessarily, but it's an acceptable compromise because we love
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the president.
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  Speaker 2: And this works.
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  Speaker 1: Harrison and Tyler defeat Martin Van Buren and his vice president,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Richard M. Johnson. I gotta tell you too, it's it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: endlessly funny to me when you meet presidential history buffs.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Max is one. I'm one as well. Most of us
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: don't know the vice presidents. I'm just gonna be honest,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we just don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Max.
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  Speaker 1: You can name all the presidents, as can I, but
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: can you name all the vice presidents?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Oh? Definitely not.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: I mean there's so many of these turrets that were
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: just so forgettable. And I mean, here's the thing. It's important.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Ben.
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  Speaker 2: You know this too.
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  Speaker 4: The majority, like, especially pre nineteen hundred, most presidents were
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: just like.
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  Speaker 2: They didn't do anything.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: A lot of these guys did nothing, and so they're
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: pretty forgettable, and thus their vice presidents are very forgata,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: especially once get into the Gilded Age, because they're just
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: changing out vps all the time because they're always getting
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: charged with some sort of corruption charge, especially grant vps.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Grants VP's changed.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It a lot. Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Also, let's say the quiet part out loud. For a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: lot of early American history, a lot of these pos
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: peticians were kind of drunk.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: Oh so drunk shot mad men rules, but like even
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: even more so. Yeah, I mean, we we've seen George
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: Washington's agnog recipe. Those guys were blasted.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Mad Men would look at these dudes and say, calm down, guys,
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: It's it's only eleven am.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Breaks, So we also know that slogan Typicalanoe and Tyler
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: too because of the cadence and the rhyming. Uh it
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: it became contagious in the American zeitgeist. Uh this does
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: refer to this river in Indiana where Harrison massacred Shawning population.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And then you know, Harrison is probably most famous for
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  Speaker 1: dying a month into becoming president. No one knew what
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: to do. This was and I'm not proud of it, folks,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: unprecedented long The Constitution didn't say anything about it. No
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: one had any idea, They said, what happens when the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: president dies? Does the vice president automatically get the job?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Or are they just sort of the substitute teacher for
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a while.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: It's sort of like we see a lot of flaws
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: in our government and the way things are run when
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: we start to realize that oftentimes things are just kind
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: of a product of decorum in sort of a sense
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: of like tradition, I guess. And when you have folks
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: that pay that no attention and just you know, crap
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: all over it like we've seen in recent times, you
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: realize there's no actual laws backing up a lot of
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: these things. It's just kind of the way things have
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: been done, or a situation that has yet to present itself.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You cannot predict everything. And because of this,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Tyler's opponents, folks like John Quincy Adams start calling him
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: his accidency. You know, like, you didn't earn your spot here.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: No one really voted for you, bro, We all know
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: how vice presidents work. Anyway, Tyler said, forget you guys,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I'm the president. I was next in line. Moves into
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the White House and nobody manages to successfully overturn that decision.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: While he's there, he stays old school. He goes back
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to his Richmond days. Someone tries to establish a national
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: bank twice, and he vetos at both times. That's when
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: everybody from his cabinet except for one guy, resigns.
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: Guys like Vito Corleone over here. Am I right, you
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: are correct sir, I'm sorry, little drum kit. So obviously
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: we can understand the decision of Tyler's cabinet now. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: they're like, hey, we came up because we all liked
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: our boss, and a month later he died.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: We did not agree with you. We did not sign
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: up for this job. The only guy who stays is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State Daniel Webster, which could be an episode
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of his own anyway. Two days later, after everybody resigns,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the congressional reps in the Whig Party say, also, screw you, buddy,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: we are not fans of Johnny t Well.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: You know we know that the president. While they are
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: bestowed with numerous unilateral powers, there is a little something
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: that seems to also kind of work, based more on
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: decorum than anything called checks and balances that does require
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: you to have some support from other wings of the government.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: They're obviously the veto.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: Thing is very unilateral, but if you don't have any
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: support that, it's also going to be really hard for
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: you to push through any of your policies, of which
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: it seems many of his were based in those southern
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: ways that his papa kind of hipped into growing up.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: This the excellent points you've made here. His administration does
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: manage to get stuff done. They reorganized the Navy, they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: begin the United States Weather Bureau, thank you for that.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: They end a war in Florida, the Second Seminole War
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it's called. And then they put down they put down
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a rebellion in Rhode Island. Now, I know we don't
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: all think of Rhode Island as the seat of secessionism
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: these days, but you know, in eighteen forty two it
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: was a very different place, and they maintained order.
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: Now, but taken as a list of accomplishments we just read,
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: that doesn't seem too terribly shabby, you know, especially given
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: that the deck was stacked against him. Why do people
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: hate this guy so much? I imagine we're going to
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: get to that.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: That's part of it.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I think history doesn't look back kindly on the narchical
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: aspect of Tyler's ideology, and they don't like the racism
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to be.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: That's sure, that people.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: It's just surprising to me that despite having very little
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: support from his party and from the legislature, that he
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: was able to get so much done. I mean, in
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: modern time, we've certainly seen presidents that were absolutely hamstrung
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: by activist kind of you know, behavior from the opposing party,
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: just trying to hold up every bit of an agenda
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: as possible just to make the president look bad. I'm
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: just wondering if maybe things were a little differently and
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: he was able to operate a little more unilaterally or
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: like in a kingly fashion.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think an important note about this period
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: of time is to understand what the Whig Party was,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: which was we don't like Andrew Jackson and nothing more
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: than that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: His whole thing was he was a Democrat who didn't
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: like Andrew Jackson. And so the wags are go, come
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: on over with us, you can be our VP and stuff,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: and like, you know, we talked about it with uh,
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: Henry Clay, because Henry Clay was like the one true
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Wig it felt like nobody else was a wig, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: so a lot of the stuff he was doing was
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: probably very popular with the opposition party, Like he was
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: always doing things with the devocrats like yeah, and the
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: whigs like half of them work yeah, and half of
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: them work no. And then somehow a third half of
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: them was like, I don't know, like licking glue.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Who knows. Wigs did not see.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: The wigs were not around for very long for very
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: obvious reasons, because Andrew Jackson eventually.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Died and they had no way forward. They had no
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: real core policy of tricky Screw Jackson.
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: When you make your whole thing just based around hating
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: a person, and then you lose the object of your hatred,
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: it's your kind of rudderless at that point.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: It's sort of funny if you think.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: About, well, it's it's the same reason why beginning something,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: any great endeavor with a negative aspect baked into the core,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: they're usually not sustainable, you know. And so at this
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: same time, with great tragedy, seven children are left without
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a mother because Letitia dies in eighteen forty two. This
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: is the first time an acting president's wife has passed
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: away in the White House. Tyler marries another person two
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: years later, Julia Gardner, in eighteen forty four, and so
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: he also becomes the first active president to marry while
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in office. And like you were saying, Max, the Whigs
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: agree with him on some things, reject him on others.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The Democrats are very much not super fans of John Tyler.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: And so this guy, you gotta admire the hutsba. This
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: guy goes into the presidential election in eighteen forty four
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: as the candidate of his own party. He made up
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: his own party, he found like the six people in
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Washington who would hang out with him, and then said,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: everybody hates me. Make the president again. It didn't work.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean once again, he was kind of what
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: do you call it? He had some just guy. He
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: was left with some hanging out in the breeze, you know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: he was.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: He was alone.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: Nobody wanted to back him. He had a very difficult
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: time getting any support, to the point that in August
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: eighteen forty four, he actually took his name out of
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: the hat, the conceptual hat, and instead decided to throw
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: his support behind the Democratic nominee, James K.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Polk.
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: And after he left office, he did continue to be
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: something of a social activist or he you know, he
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: maintained a voice in public of fails, you know, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: he of course maintained that beaten of that.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: That's so and drum he loved so well.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Hm and uh, let me let me amend this. He
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: had eight children. I believe I may have said seven earlier,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: so let's be clear there. That's why we're talking about
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: this episode. America's tenth president had a grandchild that lived
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: well into the modern age. It is absolutely bizarre. Shout
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: out again to Sherwood Forrest, home of President Tyler. You
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: can learn more information about this.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: He had.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So, he had eight kids with his first wife, Letitia
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Mary Robert and John, Letitia Elizabeth Alice and of course
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Max's favorite Taze. Well, Taz Well, that's a ribulous name.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Where did that come from?
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: Now i'minna determinism there means this person's going to become
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: like a security guard or the inventor of the taser,
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: which has it's literally spelled that way. I've never seen that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: It does seem kind of like a Southern name like
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: mister Tay's.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I just.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: Picture that, and can I also just say that when
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: people on YouTube who are like coastal, kind of like
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: California types mock the South as an overarching thing. I
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: want to punch them. I hate it because we you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: we live here. We can make fun of it. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: when you do that voice and you're from like California
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: or something like that in New York, it almost good
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: burns me up, burns me up.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, isn't that what British people think about when we
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: do British commonly?
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: So I'm trying to be self aware about all of this,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: but I'm saying also, like or Georgia is a complex state,
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: just like anywhere else. You know, you've got your redneck
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: contingents in California, you've got bad people and lazy, good
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: for nothing, uneducated, you know, dingbats everywhere.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: It's just really annoying to me.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: I think that lazy when people focus in on the
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: South and act like it's.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: All just you know, people marrying their cousins or something
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: like that. Well, that's which we have an episode about.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: That's the word. That's the word lazy.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I love I love a good Cartoonish accent, obviously, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I love it when it's well intentioned in good fun.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: But when it's lazy writing, then it's just a case
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of do better, you know what I mean. And here's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the deal with the children. So you'll find some sources
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: saying seven children with the first wife, some saying eight.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: The truth of it is that unfortunately one of those
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: kids died at birth and that's why the source is different.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Little and so when he real it doesn't stop there,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: as Billy Mays was wont to say, wait, there's more.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: When he marries Julia Gardner Tyler, who is thirty years
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: younger than him, they have more kids.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: Again, no judgment here, but I would say that goes
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: against the whole age appropriate formula that we've talked about
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: on the show.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: I think, yes, indeed, fight it by Yeah, it's actually
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: not as far off as you thanks.
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: Not so bad, okay, Okay, get yeah, Because it does
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: have to do with the age that the the.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That's the one, isn't it? Okay? So what so that
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: would be.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: Forty two if he was seventy I don't remember exactly
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: how old he was when he.
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: Married her, well, probably about sixty nine. Let's just make
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: it the naughty number and call it sixty nine.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Nice, So she would have been thirty nine. I feel
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: like she was in her Yeah, I don't know. It's
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: pushing it, Yes.
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: It's pushing it. But whatever, we're not here to judge
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: it was. It was a different time. But yeah, they
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: did have a child. His youngest, Shell Pearl, was born
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: at the right old age of seventy. Yeah, not the
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: child instantly seventy. That'd be interesting. That makes some Benjamin
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: Button stuff. Now, Tyler was seventy when he his wife
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: gave birth to their youngest child.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Happens a lot these days as well. You know, I
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: think Robert de Niro notable actor, and Mick Jagger, notable musician,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: both had some kids pretty lately.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: It looks like he lost more than just one child though, right,
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: they had four tragic.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Two actually kind of juman backtrack because actually child were following,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: So he had seven more children with this woman.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the one child he lost was from the first man,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: But then, but so the joke of it is like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: there's four children who died before the birth of his
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: last child.
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: That was in the what was going on? That sounds
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: that's unlikely. Yeah, I mean again, there's a different time.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: Medical technology wasn't where it is, but that just seems
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: like real ron luck there.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: He had a total of fifteen children, fifteen legitimate children
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: that we know of, with two spouses, eight boys, seven girls,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and as you point out, Max, four of his children
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: had already passed away by the time he had his
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: last child, Pearl that you mentioned, Noel and Pearl. Let's
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: trace the line a bit. Pearl lives until nineteen forty seven. Pearl,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: she's born in eighteen sixty. She lives long enough to
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: see World War two, World War One, the Civil War.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: It's nuts.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use the phrase Max, you wrote this,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and I just want to give credit where it's due.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You could say a hyper virulent sperm.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: The seed is strong. Yeah, that was a Game of Thrones.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: There is another well known book I believe you reference
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: already been, which was called Sherwood Forest, Home of President
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: John Tyler, in which they make notes that he had
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: forty four grandchildren, five of which were named John. And
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: I just having just recently rewatched the nineteen seventies Disney
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Robin Hood, I love the idea of living in Sherwood Forest.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: It seems like a place for the proletariat, you know,
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: it seems like a place where like a band of
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: mary you know, ruffians hang out and have their fort
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: and steal from the rich.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: But not this Sherwood forrest. It would seem no.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: And this all leads us to the grand mathematical oddity.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: If we're playing along at home ridiculous historians, fifteen children.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Those fifteen children make forty four grandchildren, and five of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: those are confusingly named John. This means that up until
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: just three years ago, two of the tenth president's grandchildren
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: were alive. They were alive while we were doing this show.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: That's wild man, the tenth President. That's a long time ago.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I don't understand. We're in seventeen ninety.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's pretty insane. Is that strong sperm? That's what
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: did it? It has life giving powers. You know, it's
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: that strong math too, So it obviously sperm in general
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: has life giving powers. That's sort of what it is,
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: but mystical imbued with a little more rutzba.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's give you the names. Lyon Gardner Tyler, Junior,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: grandson of the tenth President, Johnny T, passed away on
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: September twenty sixth, twenty twenty at the heartbreakingly young age
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of ninety five.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: Ninety five years young and gone too soon. Lyon's brother,
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: Harrison Ruffin Taylor, I love the name. Ruffin, by the way,
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: was born in nineteen twenty eight. Is still living, that's
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: right to this day, still living.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: He is ninety five years old.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly ninety five years young, ripe old age. But
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: he's still gets out there and mall walks. You know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: I'm sure, what is this guy up to? I'm intrigued,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: really wild.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: He does a lot of a lot of EDM, a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: lot of DJing, He's got some deep house, a little
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: bit of jungle, you.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Know, really into VR rhythm games. That's his whole thing.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And so we're going to call it a day, but
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: we want you to know, fellow ridiculous historians, Noel Max
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and I went through more research we had compiled for this,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and we we're gonna bring it back in our continuing
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: clip show, which so far has ended up with us
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: doing like one piece of stuff we didn't get to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm happy with that. I thought the nukes episode
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: was good.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Oh totally. And it's fine.
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: We've got stuff that like ends up kind of clustered
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: around sort of themes, so it'll be really fun to
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: do this. I would love to add one last little
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: bit of trivia. I just found this before we took
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: a little off Mike moment. We mentioned the tagline Tippecanoe
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: and Tyler too, and we're talking about that this was
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: an egregious act of war criminality by the US and
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: defeating indigenous people and dare we say slaughtering them?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: We do say.
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: But apparently there's a thing called the Typeic Canoe curse
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: or Tecumsa's curse, which is an urban legend that cursed
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: United States presidents voted into office in years that end
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: with zero that can be divided by twenty. Eighteen forty
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: President Harrison died in office from elling this. Eighteen sixty,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: Lincoln assassinated, eighteen eighty, Garfield assassinated nineteen twenty. Harding died
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: in office after suffering a heart attack. Nineteen forty. Roosevelt
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: died during his fourth term. Nineteen sixty. Kennedy assassinated. Interesting,
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: didn't know about this, thought it worth mentioning, But yeah, man.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Kind of an ornery, you.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Know, spoiled brat type figure in politics. But I think
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: the lineage is interesting and I'll honestly how he came
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: to be in power is also interesting. The whole thing,
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: you know, I think it fits the bill for ridiculous history.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Also, one last thing I do want to point out.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: It seems like the two grandchildren Lion Harrison, seemed to
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: be alright, dude, So it looks like, you know, it
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: seems like the terribleness has knock all of you down.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Their father as much. If you're interested in learning more about.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Him, find his William and Mary page that talks about
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: his time as president of the College of William Mary.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: By the way, they all went to college with William
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: and Mary, very that old old.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Old dominion, because of course they did. And it's important
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: to know the sins of the parents, you're not the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: sins of the child, right, So we're going to end
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: it there. Thank you as always, folks, so much for
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Thanks to our super producer and research associate
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: for this episode, mister Max Williams, as well as his
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: own brothers still alive Alex Williams, who composed this track.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: Huge thanks to Chris frosciotis here in spirit. He's Jeff Coates.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: Jonathan Strickland ever made the curse of strickland.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Rain in any year that ends with a number exactly.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.