Who is the earliest US President to still have grandchildren alive today?

ByCraig Haley

During the weekend we were presented with a piece of seemingly unbelievable trivia from one of our readers who doubted its authenticity.

It’s been doing the social media rounds and this piece of trivia purported to answer the following question – who is the earliest president to still have grandkids alive today?

Naturally we would initially suspect to be looking for those who assumed the presidency around the 1900s, may be Calvin Coolidge or Theodore Roosevelt.

Way off.

In fact this piece of trivia asserted the answer to be – unbelievably – John Tyler, the 10th US President who took office way back in 1841. And it is completely correct.


John Tyler, the 10th US President.

Tyler was born only a year after the very first president, George Washington, took office, and assumed office himself 51 years later after the then president – William Harrison – died after only a month after taking office, bumping up then vice-president Tyler to the top job.

According to Tyler’s genealogy page at the Sherwood Forest website, Tyler had fathered an impressive 15 children, many of whom were born much later in Tyler’s life, during his second marriage. President Tyler married Julia Gardiner after his first wife passed away. Gardiner was 30 years his junior and together they had several children, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler, born in 1853 when President Tyler was 63.

Lyon Gardiner Tyler also went on to marry twice, the second wife being Sue Ruffin who – again – was substantially younger than Lyon. 36 year younger to be exact. Together they had Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. (b. 1924) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (b. 1928) when Lyon Gardiner Tyler Snr. was 71 and 75 years old respectively. Both men are still alive today.


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So essentially this surprising factoid owes its cause to both President John Tyler and one of his sons marrying women substantially younger than themselves and thus being able to father children much later in life that you’d usually expect.

It’s pretty impressive, being able to say that your granddad was the 10th president of the United States (6 presidents before Abraham Lincoln!) and who was born when George Washington was still the leader of the US.

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