Julia Gardiner

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Julia Gardiner was born on May 4, 1820, on Gardiner's Island in New York. She was the daughter of David Gardiner, a landowner and New York State senator(1824- 1828), and Juliana Maclachlan Gardiner.

She met the recently widowed President Tyler in 1842, and she agreed to marry him after he comforted her in the aftermath of her father's death. They married in secret,
and she became first lady immediately upon their marriage, serving in the role for the final eight months of his presidency.

After leaving the White House, Tyler moved to the Sherwood Forest Plantation in Virginia with her husband and had seven children. She became a prominent supporter of slavery in the United States, writing an influential pamphlet in 1853 that defended the practice. During the American Civil War, she provided support to the Confederate States of America, creating a permanent rift with her family in New
York. Financially strapped after the war and her husband's death, Tyler lobbied Congress for a presidential widow's pension, and it was granted in 1880.

She spent her final years in Richmond, Virginia and passed away on July 10, 1889.