Royall Tyler
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Royall Tyler | |
---|---|
Born | June 18, 1757 |
Died | August 26, 1826 Brattleboro, Vermont, United States | (aged 69)
Resting place | Brattleboro's Prospect Hill Cemetery |
Nationality | American |
Education | Roxbury Latin School Harvard University |
Occupations |
|
Spouse | Mary Palmer |
Children | 11 |
Royall Tyler (June 18, 1757 – August 26, 1826) was an American
Early life
Born in
Military service
After graduating from Harvard in 1776, Tyler briefly served in the
Start of career
In late 1778, he began to study law with Francis Dana. He was admitted to the bar in 1780 and practiced in Portland, Maine, before moving to Braintree, Massachusetts.
In Braintree Tyler lodged with Mary and Richard Cranch. Mary Cranch was the sister of
Tyler served again in the militia in 1787, as
Tyler was friendly with Joseph Pearce Palmer (a son of the Revolutionary War brigadier general Joseph Palmer) and Palmer's wife Elizabeth Hunt, and resided in their Boston boarding house. In 1796 Tyler married their daughter Mary, who was eighteen years younger, and they moved to Guilford, Vermont. They moved to Brattleboro in 1801, and were the parents of eleven children: Royall (Born 1794, died in college); John (b. 1796); Mary (b. 1798); Edward (b. 1800); William (b. 1802); Joseph (b. 1804); Amelia (b. 1807); George (b. 1809); Charles Royall (b. 1812); Thomas (b. 1815); and Abiel (1818–1832). Several Tyler children had prominent careers, including four who became members of the clergy.
Mary Palmer Tyler lived to age 91. She died in Brattleboro on July 13, 1866, and was buried next to her husband.
Later career
A
In 1812 he ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate as a Democratic-Republican, losing the legislative election because by then the Federalists controlled Vermont General Assembly.
From 1811 to 1814 Tyler was a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Vermont.
From 1815 to 1821 he was Windham County's Register of Probate.
Career as author
In 1787, his comedy The Contrast was performed in New York City, the first American comedy to be performed by professional actors. The play's first public showing was shortly after George Washington's inauguration and Washington and several members of the First Congress attended. The play was well-received, and Tyler became a literary celebrity.[1]
Tyler continued to write, and frequently collaborated with his friend Joseph Dennie,[2][3] including co-writing a satirical column which appeared in Dennie's newspaper The Farmer's Weekly Museum.[4][5] He published The Algerine Captive in 1797 and wrote several legal tracts, six plays, a musical drama, two long poems, many essays, and a semifictional travel narrative, 1809's The Yankey in London.
Personal life
In later life Royall Tyler admitted to his youthful arrogance and profligate conduct, but said he regretted only the limitations which his past placed upon his career and later ambitions.
He was believed to have fathered a child with Katharine Morse, the cleaning woman in the Harvard College buildings when Tyler was a student.[6] This son, Royal Morse, was born in 1779 and came to public attention as a leader of the 1834 anti-Catholic riots in Cambridge.
According to Palmer family descendants[citation needed], Tyler fathered one daughter, and possibly two, with his landlady and mother-in-law Elizabeth Palmer while her husband, Joseph Pearse Palmer was away. The girls were Sophia, born in 1786, and Catherine, born in 1791.
Tyler was accused[by whom?] of starting a sexual relationship with Mary Palmer before she was old enough to marry. In her version of events, her neighbors believed that she was pregnant before she married Royall Tyler because the neighbors didn't know that they had married in secret.[citation needed]
Death and burial
Tyler died in Brattleboro, Vermont, on August 26, 1826, as the result of facial cancer that he had suffered from for ten years.[7] He was buried in Brattleboro's Prospect Hill Cemetery.[8]
Legacy
Tyler has been identified as the model for
The main theater at the University of Vermont is named for him.[12]
His great-grandson Royall Tyler (1884–1953) was a prominent historian.[13]
His descendant Royall Tyler (born 1936) is a well known scholar and translator of Japanese literature.
References
- ^ Lepore, Jill (14 April 2008). "Prior Convictions". The New Yorker. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- ISBN 0-934223-02-5.
- ISBN 0-14-043588-3.
- Houghton Mifflin. pp. 119.
Joseph Dennie Royall Tyler.
- ISBN 0-404-02308-8.
- ISBN 978-0-8262-1528-4.
- ISBN 978-3-7357-4627-6.
- ^ The Vermont Historical Gazeteer
- ^ St. John, Thomas. "Nathaniel Hawthorne On Beacon Hill". Nathaniel Hawthorne: Studies In The House Of The Seven Gables. Brattleboro History. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ^ "Judge Royall Tyler, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon - Hawthorne's Seven Gables". hawthornessevengables.com. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
- ISBN 978-0-521-09056-8.
- ^ "Royall Tyler Theatre". University of Vermont. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ^ "Biography: Royall Tyler (1884-1953)". Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art. Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
Additional sources
- Carson, Ada Lou, "Thomas Pickman Tyler's 'Memoirs of Royall Tyler': An Annotated Edition," University of Minnesota Ph.D. (University Microfilms), 1985.
- Carson, Ada Lou and Herbert L. Carson, "Royall Tyler," Twayne Publishers: 1979.
- Lauter, Paul, Ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. [1] Vol. 1. 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin Co.: Boston, 2002.
- Dame, Frederick William, Roots of American Character Identity, Volume 2, Chapter 9: The Role of the American Dramatist-Jurist Royall Tyler (1757-1826) in Developing American National Identity (pages 261-325), The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston NY: 2009.
Further reading
- Jarvis, Katherine Schall. Royall Tyler's Lyrics for "May Day in Town", Harvard Library bulletin, Volume XXIII, Number 2 (April 1975).
External links
- Works by Royall Tyler at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Royall Tyler at Internet Archive
- Tyler's Historical Marker
- Judge Royall Tyler in The House of the Seven Gables
- Prior Convictions, a New Yorker article that discusses The Algerine Captive and Royall's life