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A Long Island Social Climber

At age 24, Julia Gardiner charmed a president and enjoyed a brief tenure as first lady

Julia Gardiner married the 10th U.S. president, John Tyler (Courtesy of Gardiner Family, Newsday Photo)

Staff Writer

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When she was single, one newspaper called her "the Rose of Long Island." When she was married, she was "the Lovely Lady Presidentress."

Her name was Julia Gardiner, and she was born on the island that still bears her family's name in East Hampton. Lion Gardiner, the first Englishman to settle on Long Island, was her ancestor.

By all accounts, she was the spoiled daughter of socially prominent parents who was courted by men both on Long Island and in Washington. At one time she was dating two congressmen, three Supreme Court justices and a naval officer.

When she was 24 years old, she married the widowed president of the United States, John Tyler, and soon demonstrated a certain flair. She ordered 12 young women in white dresses to follow her wherever she went. And she apparently goaded a New York Herald Tribune reporter into referring to her as "the Lovely Lady Presidentress" and "her serene loveliness."

Julia Gardiner Tyler of East Hampton was some first lady.

Her journey to the White House begins on Gardiners Island, where she was born in 1820. Her father was David Gardiner, a state senator and a man of wealth and political connections; her mother was Juliana, the daughter of rich New York Scotch immigrants.

"Julia was my grandfather's sister," said Robert David Lion Gardiner, who lives in East Hampton and Palm Beach, Fla. "She was known far and wide for her beauty. I heard about her when I was growing up. My father knew her quite well."

When she was 20, Julia and her sister, Margaret, took a "grand tour" of Europe, stopping in England, France and Italy. "In London, Julia was courted by a nobleman who wanted to marry her," said Gardiner. "She went on to Rome, where she met a prince who wanted to make her his princess."

After the tour, she went to Washington, where she made the social rounds. In January, 1842, she met President John Tyler at a White House party. Tyler had assumed the presidency in 1841 after the death of President William Henry Harrison, who succumbed a month after taking the oath of office. The following September, Tyler's wife, Letitia, died in the White House of a stroke.

That fall of 1842, Julia dated a number of men, including Rep. James Buchanan, who was later elected president, another congressman, Francis Pickens, three Supreme Court justices and a naval officer. The following Feb. 7, she visited Tyler in the White House. According to "First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power," by Carl Sferrazza Anthony the invitation was to play cards.

"By evening's end," according to the book, "the president, thirty years her senior, was chasing Julia down the stairs and around tables." A few weeks later, he asked her to marry him. She did not immediately give him an answer and, the book states, her mother opposed the marriage because Tyler was not rich enough.

On Feb. 28, 1844, Julia and her father joined Tyler and 400 others for a cruise on the Potomac on the USS Princeton. The event of the day was to be the firing of the Princeton's big gun -- the Peacemaker, the largest in the Navy.

At 3 p.m., the boat was off Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation. "They were going to fire it in a salute to Washington," said Gardiner. "A minute or two before it was to be fired, Julia and the president went below to have a glass of champagne. Just as they left the deck, the huge gun exploded."

Among the dead were the secretary of state, the secretary of the Navy and Julia's father, David. "The president should have been up on the deck for the firing of the gun, but he was below with Julia drinking champagne. She saved his life," Gardiner said. "She had a knack for being in the right place at the right time."

The following June, Julia Gardiner and Tyler were married in a secret ceremony in a Fifth Avenue, New York, cathedral. "I have commenced my auspicious reign," Julia Tyler wrote after the wedding, "and am in quiet possession of the Presidential Mansion."

She became the first first lady to pose for a daguerreotype, and the first to hire a press agent. She was also the first first lady to dance at a White House party, and wherever she went she was accompanied by 12 "maids of honor," six on each side, all dressed alike.

A reporter for the New York Herald -- who was said to be in love with Julia and coined the phrase "Lovely Lady Presidentress" -- wrote in one dispatch that Julia was "the most accomplished woman of her age," and possessed a "spirit of youth and poetry, love and tenderness . . . "

Tyler did not seek re-election, so Julia was first lady for only seven months. The couple then retired to his plantation near Richmond.

While there is no hard proof, Gardiner is certain that, as president, Tyler and his wife visited the Gardiner house on Main Street in East Hampton and toured Gardiners Island.

"When I was growing up, my family called our home the summer White House," he said. "And to this day, there is a hitching post on the curb in front of the house on Main Street that I was told was put in for the president's messenger when he came with telegrams."

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Julia was an ardent supporter of the South. Her stepson, John Alexander Tyler, fought with Robert E. Lee; her brother, David, was a colonel in a New York regiment. President Tyler died in 1863, and as far as Gardiner knows, Julia never returned to East Hampton or Gardiners Island. She died in 1889 and was buried in Richmond.

John Alexander Tyler married Sally Gardiner -- another of the East Hampton Gardiners -- and his elaborate grave marker is in the Gardiner family plot in East Hampton.