Harrison Ruffin Tyler, Grandson of the 10th President, Is Dead at 96
His death was confirmed by Annique Dunning, the executive director of Sherwood Forest Plantation, a private foundation established by the Tyler family.
Mr. Tyler suffered a series of small strokes starting in 2012 and was later diagnosed with dementia. In recent years, his son William Bouknight Tyler oversaw the James River plantation that had been his family's ancestral home.
Mr. Tyler, a retired businessman, and his older brother, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., who died at age 95 in 2020, were sons of Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. (1853-1935), a longtime president of the College of William & Mary. Their grandfather was the U.S. president who pushed for the annexation of Texas as American expansion moved west, but he is perhaps best known for the Whig Party's memorable 1840 presidential campaign slogan, 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.'
In a remarkable instance of successive longevities and late-in-life paternities, the Tyler family produced a genealogical marvel, if not a singularity: three generations that spanned nearly the entire history of the American experience.
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