William Cranch, the chief judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, administered the presidential oath of office to Tyler during the proceedings.

Two days later, Richmond attorney James Lyons wrote with the news that the president had taken a turn for the worse, remarking that "I shall not be surprised to hear by tomorrow's mail that Gen'l Harrison is no more.

[2] President Tyler immediately packed a bag and headed towards Washington with one of his sons via the fastest conveyances then available (steamboat and train), arriving early in the morning of April 6, having made the 230-mile (370 km) journey in 21 hours.

[3] On April 6, 1841, William Cranch, Chief Judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, administered the oath to President Tyler in the lobby of the Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, making this the first extraordinary presidential inauguration in history.

The “Tyler precedent” subsequently endured through the next seven presidential deaths, four after assassinations, until it was codified in 1967 when the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.