John Tyler, tenth president of the United States, was born just north of here at Greenway on 29 March 1790. The frame plantation house was built ca. 1776 for his father, John Tyler, a noted jurist and governor of Virginia (1808-1811), who is buried on the property. The future president grew up at Greenway and lived here again in the 1820s while serving in the Virginia House of Delegates, as governor of Virginia, and in the United States Senate. He and his wife, Letitia Christian, moved to Gloucester County at the end of the decade. In 1842, during his presidential term, Tyler bought Sherwood Forest, about three miles east of here.
