Tyler Paternity

John Tyler had the most children of any U.S. president. Tyler married Letitia Christian of New Kent County, Virginia in 1813, and they had 8 children. After Letitia’s death, Tyler remarried Julia Gardiner of East Hampton, New York, and they had 7 children, bringing the total number to 15. For a genealogy, see this outline.

Oral Traditions of Tyler Paternity

The earliest claim that Tyler had children with the Black women he enslaved or employed appeared in 1841 during his first year as president. The abolitionist Joshua Leavitt published an article called “Tyler-ising” which identified two enslaved children of President Tyler: John Tyler and Charles Tyler. President Tyler refuted the claim by publishing a rebuttal in the administration’s official newspaper a few weeks after Leavitt’s article circulated.

Dr. Edward Crapol summarizes the article in his biography on Tyler: “The tale about the two sons, named John and Charles Tyler, evolved from the recollections of a Baptist minister known to editor Leavitt. The minister was said to have visited Richmond several years earlier and while in the home of his hostess encountered a light-skinned and well-mannered servant. The minister conversed with the servant and inquired if he was a slave. The servant replied yes, he was a slave who had been born on Governor Tyler’s plantation and then sold to his mistress, ‘down at Williamsburgh.’ ‘What is your name,’ asked the minister. ‘My name is John, sir,’ he replied; ‘my mother called me John Tyler, because she said Governor Tyler was my father. You know such things happen sometimes on plantations.’ By now thoroughly intrigued, the minister asked the slave if his mother had other children by his master. The reply was ‘Yes, sir, several,’ and ‘I reckon they are all sold before now…’ Charles had been John Tyler’s highly prized body servant when his master was a senator in Washington. ‘In the year 1837, or the beginning of 1838, a colored man passed through Poughkeepsie, on his way to Canada, who called his name Charles Tyler, and who seemed to have a good deal of knowledge of things in Washington.’” [1]

In addition, numerous oral traditions of Tyler paternity have survived within Black families from the surrounding Charles City County area. In The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA, Dr. Daryl Dance compiles an extensive account of oral histories within the Brown family related to the children that President John Tyler reportedly had with perhaps multiple Black women, both enslaved and free. We cannot know how the women in these histories felt about John Tyler, but the power dynamic between a white enslaver and a Black woman, whether enslaved or free, made it nearly impossible for her to withhold consent from this powerful man. The list below identifies the histories that Dr. Dance includes in The Lineage of Abraham.

  • Doris Christian recalled that her grandfather, Sylvanius Tyler Brown, was the son of John Tyler and a woman named Martha “Patsy” Boasman Brown. Christian also recounted that John Tyler supposedly bragged that he had not just 15 white children, but also 52 children by Black women. [2]

  • A descendant of Isaac Brown told Judith Ledbetter, a genealogist who specializes in Charles City County families, that Tyler was the father of Ottoway Brown. [3]

  • Dr. William C. Calloway and his family share an oral history that John Tyler had a child with a woman who was enslaved by Tyler’s first wife, Letitia Christian. Ongoing research has identified Wallace Christian as the possible child in question whose parents are identified as Mary Green and James Christian on his death certificate. [4]

  • Drusilla Dunjee Houston, the daughter of John William Dunjee, an esteemed missionary and minister who lived in Charles City and New Kent as a formerly enslaved person, claimed that Dunjee was the son of John Tyler and an unnamed Native American woman who lived in New Kent. [5]

  •  Dr. Dance writes, “The only documented link of any kind between Tyler and Polly was the sale of land by him and his wife to her two sons [Crawford and Thaddeus] in 1852, land adjoining Sherwood Forest.” [6]

Documented Connections & DNA Evidence

Based on vital records and DNA evidence, at least one of John Tyler’s white sons fathered children with an African American woman named Sarah (or Sallie) Jefferson. Available evidence suggests that Tazewell Tyler, John and Letitia’s youngest child, had three children with Sarah Jefferson, who lived in New Kent County by 1870. [7] Their children were Thomas Jefferson Tyler, Emma Tyler (Bassett), and John C. Tyler. Emma and John’s death certificates list Tazewell Tyler as their father and Sarah Jefferson as their mother. [8] White descendants of John Tyler have matched with Black descendants of Thomas, Emma, and John on Ancestry.com and 23andMe. [9]

Whether John Tyler enslaved any of his own children is unknown; however, evidence indicates that Tyler has direct descendants who are Black and white. Randy Ross, Ph.D., descendant of Tazewell Tyler and Sarah Jefferson, provided extensive research and thoughtful commentary for this page.

If you have credible oral histories that you wish to share with the Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation, contact presjteh@gmail.com.

[1] Crapol, Edward. “Defending Slavery,” John Tyler: The Accidental President, UNC Press, 2014.

[2] Dance, Daryl Cumber and Daryl Lynn Dance. The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA. 1998, p. 39.

[3] Dance, Daryl Cumber and Daryl Lynn Dance. The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA.1998, p. 38.

[4] Dance, Daryl Cumber and Daryl Lynn Dance. The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA. 1998, p. 39. Wallace Christian, 1912, Virginia Deaths and Burials, 1853-1912, retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X5Y9-FW5.

[5] Houston, Drusilla Dunjee, Department of Negro History, Heroes of the Negro Race—John William Dunjee 1833-1903, 1938.

[6] Dance, Daryl Cumber and Daryl Lynn Dance. The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA.1998, p. 40.

[7] 1870 U.S. Census, New Kent County, Virginia, retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-68V9-JW2?i=7&cc=1438024&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AMFGR-6JW. 1880 U.S. Census, New Kent County, Virginia, retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YB2-93MH?i=1&cc=1417683&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AMC5G-4W6.

[8] Entry for Emma Bassett, 5 May 1926, Virginia, Death Certificates, 1912-1987, retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89GL-YX61?i=33&cc=2377565&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQVRW-Q11P. Entry for John C. Tyler, 30 Sep. 1934, Virginia, Death Certificates, 1912-1987, retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99GG-9FS1?i=45&cc=2377565&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQVR4-HN1C.

[9] Randy Ross to Frances Tyler, email message, 4 Apr. 2021.