The presidency of John Tyler began on April 4, 1841, when John Tyler became President of the United States upon the death of President William Henry Harrison, and ended on March 4, 1845. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 31 days when he assumed the presidency. The tenth United States president, he was the first to succeed to the office intra-term without being elected to it. To forestall constitutional uncertainty, Tyler took the presidential oath of office on April 6, assumed full presidential powers, and served out the balance of Harrison's four-year term, a precedent that would govern future extraordinary successions and eventually become codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
1888 illustration of President Tyler receiving the news of President Harrison's death from Chief Clerk of the State Department Fletcher Webster
BEP engraved portrait of Tyler as president.
Whig cartoon depicting the effects of unemployment on a family that has Jackson's and Van Buren's portraits on the wall
Captain John C. Frémont's expeditions (1842 and 1843–1844) under Tyler's presidency opened the West to American emigration.
William Henry Harrison was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration as president in 1841, making his presidency the shortest in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis since presidential succession was not then fully defined in the United States Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies and was the paternal grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States.
Harrison by James Lambdin, 1841
An engraved portrait print of Harrison at age 27, as a delegate member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Northwest Territory by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, c. 1800
1915 depiction of Tecumseh, believed to be copying an 1808 sketch
This portrait of Harrison originally showed him in civilian clothes as a congressional delegate in 1800; the uniform was added after service in the War of 1812.