This column originally appeared in February 2012.
So, another year has come and gone and you’ve had time to rest and reflect on the fact that you’re getting older. Letters in the mail are fast becoming a thing of the past, having been replaced by e-mails. Shopping at the mall is being replaced by shopping on the net. Now, how about a couple random thoughts to help put these changes into better perspective?
Last year our country began a quiet celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The Sesquicentennial celebration will continue for the next three years. Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President, governed 150 years ago. That’s a century and a half. Seems like forever ago doesn’t it? What would you say if I told you that, as of this writing, there are at least two direct links walking among us from the antebellum Era two decades BEFORE the Civil War and rise to prominence of Mr. Lincoln?
John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, was born in 1790 and took office in 1841 after the death of Hoosier hero William Henry Harrison, resulting in Tyler’s unflattering nickname of “His Accidency.” Most historians consider him one of our nation’s worst chief executives, with a recent C-Span poll ranking him 35th out of 42 men to hold the office. Tyler’s only historical footnote was that he was the first president to wed while in office. And although there is nary a trace to be found of Mr. Tyler and his administration in today’s society, amazingly, two of his grandchildren are still alive! If that doesn’t move you, consider this: The year John Tyler was born, President George Washington gave the very first State of the Union address and Thomas Jefferson was his secretary of state. In Europe, a young upstart 2nd lieutenant named Napoleon Bonaparte was making a name for himself in the French Revolution. In Tyler’s life between 1790 and 1862, he fathered 15 children, making him our nation’s most prolific president. One of the ex-President’s children, Lyon Gardiner Tyler (born 1853) fathered a son named Lyon Junior in 1924 (at age 71) AND another son named Harrison Ruffin Tyler in 1928 at the ripe old age of 75! Each of Tyler’s sons have children still living, grandsons of our 10th President.
One of these men (Harrison) maintains the family home, Sherwood Forest, located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. Sherwood Forest is unique among Presidential homesteads in that it has the distinction of being the only private residence to have been owned by two unrelated U.S. Presidents. Ironically, William Henry Harrison inherited the plantation, then named Walnut Grove, from his sister in 1790. He sold the 3,000 acre property three years later. Harrison’s successor John Tyler eventually purchased the plantation, now reduced to 1,600 acres, in 1842 and lived there after leaving the White House. He renamed the plantation Sherwood Forest in 1842, saying it signified that he had been “outlawed” by the Whig party.
What stands out most about Tyler’s home is the resemblance to the man himself. Tyler was tall and skinny and so is his house. The home’s ballroom is over 300 feet long, designed to accommodate the most popular style of dancing back then known as the “Virginia reel,” better known by today as “line dancing.” In 1861, Tyler fell out of favor for his support of his home state during the American Civil War.
The ex-President backed Virginia’s secession until the day he died. During the war, Tyler’s estate was occupied by Union soldiers and when an Ohio regiment vacated the house in 1864, they looted the home (especially Tyler’s extensive library) and tried to burn it down as punishment for Tyler’s support of the Confederacy. The fire was quickly extinguished by a loyal slave and the home was saved. However, Tyler’s books, carried away as trophies of war by departing Federal soldiers, often turn up on the secondary market. I must confess that I once owned one of the purloined books myself containing Tyler’s bookplate and signature on the interior flyleaf.
The home has remained in the Tyler family since 1842 and during one mid-20th century restoration, it was decided to remove and replace some sagging homemade storm windows. That is, until it was discovered (through old home records) that President Tyler had made them himself. Needless to say, the windows stayed. The plantation grounds also contain a pet cemetery, where generations of Tyler family pets have been buried. The most famous internee buried there is President Tyler’s horse, “The General.” The horse’s gravestone reads, “Here lie the bones of my old horse, ‘General,’ Who served his master faithfully for twenty-one years, And never made a blunder. Would that his master could say the same!”
Loyal friends and readers will recognize my affinity for anniversaries and of course this article is no exception. John Tyler died on January 18, 1862, 150 years ago to the day of my writing. Tyler’s death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially recognized in wartime Washington, due to his allegiance to the Confederacy. Tyler is by far the oldest former President with living grandchildren, the next oldest being James A. Garfield, who served forty years after Tyler. In case you’re wondering, Abraham Lincoln has no living descendants of any kind. So age and distance are all relative when you think about the links to history walking among us. That should make you feel better, and younger.
However, should you need further encouragement, how about this: The last known Union Civil War widow, Gertrude Janeway, died within the past decade (January 17, 2003). Her husband, John Janeway, joined the Union Armies 14th Illinois Cavalry in 1864 and was briefly a POW at Andersonville. The couple married in 1927, after waiting three years for Gertrude to turn 18. John was 81 years old. They lived together in a log cabin in Blaine, Tennessee until the old cavalryman’s death in 1937. Gertrude continued to live in the cabin for nearly seven decades after her husband’s death. She received a $70 pension check for veterans’ benefits from the government every two months until she died in 2003.
One of the last-known Confederate widows, Alberta Martin, died at age 97 in Alabama on May 31, 2004. In 1927, at age 21, she married William Jasper Martin, then 81 years old. Martin joined the Confederate army in May 1864. When people asked “Mizz Alberta” about her May/December marriage, she quickly responded with “It’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.” On Oct. 10, 1928, the unlikely union produced a son, Willie and the old “War of Northern Aggression” veteran loved to go to town carrying Willie on his shoulders, proudly displaying his offspring. Although I can find no record of what happened to Willie, he could easily still be alive, making him a living son of a Civil War soldier.
The publicity surrounding Alberta Martin’s death prompted relatives of Maudie Celia Hopkins of Arkansas to reveal that the 89-year-old was in fact the last civil war widow. Hopkins married 86-year-old William Cantrell on Feb. 2, 1934, when she was 19. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he died three years later. Based upon the records of the United States Census Bureau and after certification by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Maudie Hopkins was believed to be the last publicly-known surviving widow of a Civil War veteran. Ms. Hopkins died on August 17, 2008 in a nursing home in Lexa, Arkansas at the age of 93. However, the UDC believes that there may be two other living Civil War widows, one in Tennessee and another in North Carolina, whom, if still alive, choose to remain in anonymity. Keep in mind, that these child bride marriages took place for financial stability during the Great Depression. So see, if you stop and think about it, you’re not that old after all.
Editor’s note: Helen Viola Jackson, believed to be the last widow of a Civil War veteran, passed on Jan. 8, 2021. She married the former Union soldier when he was 93 and she was 17 (and his caretaker), in 1936. She was 101 and died in Marshfield, Missouri.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
