Books and Manuscripts

Tyler, John
Autograph Letter, signed
Williamsburg, (Virginia), December 21, 1838. Single sheet, 9 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. (245 x 184 mm) One-page autograph letter, signed by future 10th President John Tyler, as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, to United States Senator from Virginia, William Spencer Roane, requesting Roane's assistance in attaining a naval commission from President Martin Van Buren for a Thomas Jones of Gloucester, Virginia. Creasing from contemporary folds. In mat with an engraved portrait of Tyler, and in frame, 15 1/4 x 20 7/8 (387 x 530 mm).

Future president John Tyler, then a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, writes to family friend William Spencer Roane (1787-1845), Democratic Senator from Virginia, and son of Judge Spencer Roane and grandson of Founding Father Patrick Henry. Tyler seeks Roane's "kind intercession" to attain a midshipman's commission from President Martin Van Buren for a Thomas Jones of Gloucester, whose family is "highly respectable and influential." The following year the Whig Party would nominate Tyler for the Vice-Presidency, and following William Henry Harrison's victory in the 1840 presidential election--and his sudden death only a month later in April, 1841--Tyler would ascend to the Presidency.