President John Tyler took office in 1841, after William Henry Harrison died. He served until 1845, but wasn’t even nominated to run again in the 1844 election (there are reasons I’ll get into below). He died in 1862, but he has two grandsons who are still alive.

First, an historical aside: Harrison served about thirty days in office, most of them spent with the illness that would take his life. He was the first U.S. president to die in office, the shortest-serving U.S. president in history, and the first victim of the “Curse of Tecumseh,” so named because of his military victory over the Shawnee leader 38 years earlier.

The “curse,” which is only apparent in hindsight, held that the president elected every twenty years would die in office. This pattern persisted for over a century, through Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, and Kennedy. Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in 1850, is the only president to die in office outside of the “curse.” I remember when the curse was on everyone’s mind after Reagan was shot in 1981, but you could either say that he broke the curse or that the curse never really existed.

Now then, back to President Tyler. Continue reading →