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Early in 1842, at a White House reception, Julia would be introduced to the man who would one day become her husband, President John Tyler. President Tyler’s first wife, Letitia, was still alive, and the first meeting was just a polite social one.
Letitia Tyler died later that year after suffering a stroke, and the romance between John and Julia started up a few months later. In early 1844, Julia’s family joined the President on an excursion aboard the new steam frigate Princeton, where her father and several others lost their life to an accidental naval gun explosion.
Stricken with grief, Tyler comforted Julia and secretly they made plans to be married. On June 26, 1844.