Martin Van Buren
Abraham Van Buren
He was born on November 27, 1807. He died March 15, 1873. He was a West Point graduate who served two years on the frontier as well as in the Mexican War. He resigned his commission on the frontier to become his father's secretary in the White House. He married Angelica Singleton, heir to a wealthy South Carolina family. He spent much of his life in the shadow of his famous father. He spent many years of his life editing and publishing the Van Buren presidential papers and serving as an apologist for his father's legacy.
John Van Buren
He was born February 18, 1810. He died at sea of kidney failure on October 13, 1866. He was 56. John Van Buren is one of the most colorful of the presidential children. Graduating from Yale in his teens and admitted to the New York bar in his twenties, gave him a head start in life. But he quickly squandered any advantage he was given. His pursuits in life were drinking, gambling and promiscuity. After carousing his way through Europe on his father's expense account, he was able to return stateside and build a career in law and as a U. S. Congressman. Marriage to Elizabeth VanderPoel brought only temporary respite to his notorious partying. To his credit he had moments of courage, standing boldly against slavery, but his personal life descended into further scandal. Finally, his alcoholism left him an invalid and eventually took his life.
Martin Van Buren, Jr.
He was born December 20, 1812. He died at age 42 on March 19, 1855. The third son of the eighth president never married. He spent most of his adult life serving his father as a White House secretary and then as a personal assistant. He arranged the former president's papers for posterity. When he fell ill, his father sent him to Europe to find a cure. But sadly "Mat" died in Paris his grieving father at his side.
Smith Thompson Van Buren
He was born January 16, 1817. He died 1876 at 59 years of age. The last Van Buren son spent his adult life defending the reputation and historic profile of his father. Little is known about his personal life, except that he married twice and fathered at least seven children. He survived his father by fourteen years and eventually transcended his brothers as the chief apologist of the Van Buren presidency.
<< Back to the list of Presidents Kids - Email this Page