John Tyler might be the weirdest President in American history, and almost nobody talks about him.
He was Vice President for 31 days. When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, the Constitution didn't clearly say whether the VP became President or just temporarily handled the job. Tyler didn't wait for anyone to decide. He took the oath and moved in. Critics called him "His Accidency." He sent back letters addressed to "Acting President" unopened.
Then it got worse. He vetoed his own party's bills so often that almost his entire cabinet resigned on the same day in 1841. The Whigs threw him out of the party. Congress introduced the first impeachment resolution ever filed against a President. It failed. He also became the first President to have a veto overridden.
In 1844, he was aboard the USS Princeton when a massive naval gun exploded during a demonstration. It killed the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Navy, and a New York politician named David Gardiner. Tyler was below deck and survived. Four months later he secretly married Gardiner's daughter Julia. She was 24. He was 54. He was the first President to get married while in office.
He had 15 children, more than any other President. His last child was born in 1860, when Tyler was 70.
After leaving office, he named his Virginia plantation "Sherwood Forest" because he saw himself as a political outlaw. The Tyler family still owns it.
In 1861, he chaired a peace conference trying to prevent the Civil War. When it failed, he sided with the South and was elected to the Confederate Congress. He died in Richmond in 1862 before taking his seat. Washington never officially acknowledged his death. He was buried with a Confederate flag over his coffin.
And here's the part that breaks people's brains: John Tyler was born in 1790, during George Washington's first term. His grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler died in 2025.