Sad news: Harrison Ruffin Tyler has died at the age of 96. Through a family quirk (marrying twice and fathering children late in life), his grandfather was far and away the earliest president to have living grandchildren. Harrison’s father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853, and died in 1935 (when his son, Harrison, was six years old). Lyon’s first wife died in 1921, after they had three children, and Lyon married Sue Ruffin, who was 35 years younger than he. Lyon and Sue had three more children: Lyon Jr. (1925–2020), Harrison (1928–2025), and Henry, who died in infancy. Lyon’s father was tenth US President John Tyler (born in 1790). John and his first wife, Letitia, had eight children. Letitia died in 1842, a year and a half after President William Henry Harrison died, making Tyler the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. In 1844, Tyler married Julia Gardiner, who was 30 years younger than he. After leaving the White House, they had seven children (Lyon was the fifth). The president died in 1862, when Lyon was eight years old.
In addition to his family pedigree, Harrison lived a full life. After graduating from Virginia Tech, he worked for Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corporation. He received a patent in water treatment pertaining to shiny aluminum. In 1963, Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corporation was acquired by Mobil, and Tyler left the company to found ChemTreat, Inc. (a water treatment company headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia) with partner William P. Simmons. In 2000, Tyler led an employee stock ownership program at his company. ChemTreat was acquired by the Danaher Corporation in 2007.
Tyler married Frances Payne Bouknight in 1957. They had three children: Julia Gardiner Tyler Samaniego (born 1958), Harrison Ruffin Tyler Jr. (born 1960), and William Bouknight Tyler (born 1961).
Tyler purchased the Sherwood Forest Plantation—President Tyler’s home—from relatives in 1975 and oversaw its restoration. In 2001, he donated $5 million and 22,000 books and documents from his father to the College of William & Mary department of history.
Frances died in 2019, and Tyler broke with family tradition by not remarrying. He suffered a series of mini-strokes in 2012, and died in the nursing home where he was living on May 25, 2025.
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2. Victoria, Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother, who reigned from June 20, 1837, to January 22, 1901 (63 years, 216 days). Born in June 1819, her father, Prince Edward, was the fourth son of the reigning King, George III. She was fifth in the line of succession at her birth (after George’s four oldest sons). Her father died seven months after her birth, and the king died a week later, putting her third in the succession (she was now the niece of King George IV). In 1830, George IV died, and the throne passed to his brother, William IV, with Victoria next in line. Upon William’s death, Victoria became queen, a month after her eighteenth birthday.
3. George III, Victoria’s grandfather, who reigned from October 25, 1760, to January 29, 1820 (59 years, 96 days). He was 22 years old when his grandfather, George II, died. His father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, died in 1751.
4. James VI of Scotland, also known as James Charles Stuart, and later as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns. He took the Scottish throne on July 24, 1567—barely a year after his birth—and died on March 27, 1625 (57 years, 246 days). The kingdoms of Scotland and England were united under James on March 24, 1603.
5. Henry III, also known as Henry of Winchester, was born in Winchester Castle on October 1, 1207, the eldest son of King John. His father died October 28, 1216, making the nine-year-old Henry King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine. He held the throne until his death on November 16, 1272 (56 years, 19 days).
Button Gwinnett (1735–May 19, 1777) was born in England, represented Georgia in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence (top signature in the left-most column), and died in duel. Gwinnett was fairly obscure prior to the signing of the Declaration, and died soon thereafter, so there are only 51 known examples of his signature, making it the rarest and most sought-after (only ten of those signatures are in private hands). The rarity of his signature has become a plot point in a lot of fiction, including the 1932 film Washington Merry Go Round, the 1958 film The Last Hurrah, a 1971 episode of Mannix, a 2018 episode of Elementary, and a 1953 science fiction story called “Button, Button” by Isaac Asimov.
Ian Randal Strock 