The Making of a First Lady

     Julia threw herself into the duties of first lady and showed remarkable savvy by recognizing that she could use the press to generate positive news about her social events, which would, in turn, benefit her embattled husband. John Tyler had been drummed out of the Whig Party for opposing much of their legislative agenda and found himself at odds with most of the national politicians who shaped policy. Julia held reception days on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of every week and ensured that details of the engagements were published in the newspapers. She unfailingly extended invitations to these events to Mrs. Madison, who served as a mentor and who had established the precedent of exploiting the capital’s social scene to her husband’s political advantage. Julia also called on Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, widow of Alexander Hamilton, and her daughter, when they were in Washington, thus establishing the link between her tenure in the White House and the founding of the nation.

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     Mostly, Julia invited politicians and their wives to evening entertainment, and she encouraged foreign delegations to wear their formal court attire, which usually led reporters to write glowing descriptions of the events in the papers. Julia’s parents had taken her and her sister to Europe in 1840, and she sought to emulate a bit of royal protocol in the White House, which brought credit to her husband. Her final ball as hostess, which occurred on February 18, 1845, and which brought a reported 2000 guests to the mansion, was a fitting capstone to a successful eight-month tenure as first lady.

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Life in Virginia

     When John Tyler’s term as president ended on March 4, 1845, he and his young wife left Washington and moved to the home on the James River in Charles City County, Virginia that he had purchased for his retirement. Befitting his “outlaw” status in national politics, he named the estate Sherwood Forest. As a northerner by birth, Julia had initially expressed misgivings about the southern plantation system that awaited her, and she was particularly apprehensive about the role slavery would come to play in her life. Nevertheless, she adapted to the system of enslavement and made the transition to becoming a thoroughly southern woman. Her transition was complete by 1853, when she published her Reply to the Duchess of Sutherland, a lengthy letter that rebutted the antislavery message of wealthy British women and made the case that a hypocritical England should pay attention to its own affairs and leave the fate of slavery to southerners.

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     President Tyler died in Richmond on January 18, 1862, right before he would have taken his seat in the Confederate Congress. His passing left Julia with the responsibility of providing for their seven children, the oldest of whom, Gardie, was just sixteen. By this time, in the early stages of the Civil War, the former first lady had become a southern partisan who supported southern independence. Despite the poor financial condition of her late husband’s estate, Julia managed to hold onto Sherwood Forest, with Tyler family ownership solidified by the 1870s when her son Gardie took up residence there.

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Crafting her Legacy

     Julia’s southern sympathies put her at perilous odds with her brother, David. When Julia moved to her mother’s house on Staten Island in the middle of the war with her youngest children, David made it clear he did not want his sister or his niece and nephews around. He had been living in Juliana’s house and overseeing her financial arrangements and resented the intrusion, all the more so because he was a devoted unionist who hated the South. Juliana’s death in October 1864 precipitated a fight over her will that drove Julia and her brother further apart. The matter was not settled until 1868. Lawyer’s fees and court costs strained an already cash-strapped Julia’s budget. Always resourceful in making ends meet, Julia sought financial security in the later years of her life.

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     To that end, she pursued a pension from the federal government, which she maintained was fitting for the widowed wives of U.S. presidents. Unfortunately, because of John Tyler’s fateful decision to become part of the Confederate government and, because of her own southern partisanship during the Civil War, she found it difficult to persuade members of Congress that she deserved a pension. Julia waged a methodical campaign to restore her good name in Washington society and reclaim her status as first lady. The opening salvo in this campaign was her donation of her wedding portrait to the White House in 1868, a shrewd and historically significant gesture that initiated the practice of having likenesses of first ladies adorning the walls of the White House. Ultimately, Julia succeeded in her effort to overturn the negative public perception of her. She became a first lady in good standing once again and was awarded an annual pension of $5000 on March 29, 1882—the ninety-second anniversary of John Tyler’s birth. Congress also unanimously granted Sarah Polk and Letitia Garfield their own $5000 pensions, which matched the amount Mary Lincoln had been awarded a year earlier.

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     Julia converted from Episcopalian to Catholicism in 1872 and took great comfort from her newfound faith, in addition to the fellowship of the community of Catholics in Washington, DC. Buoyed by this faith, and tirelessly devoted to her children, she spent the last years of her life traveling to see them and continuing to make appearances at public functions in Washington and Virginia. She never remarried and died on July 10, 1889, at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, ironically just down the hall from where her husband had passed away. 

          Sharon Williams Leahy
            Co-author - Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (2026, University Press of Kansas)

            Historian of America’s First Ladies

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References:

1 Mrs. John Tyler,” Alexandria Gazette [reprinted from New York World], Oct. 30, 1888

2 New York Daily Herald, June 28, 1844