His wife Margaret was rumored to have had an affair with John Eaton, who became Secretary of War in President Andrew Jackson's cabinet.
Eaton introduced a petition to the United States Senate to relieve Timberlake of debts collected while he was in service to the Navy.
[1] He had been ill, and newspapers reported that he had died of pulmonary disease (probably pneumonia) while on board ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
When the Constitution put in at Mahón on the Spanish island of Menorca, Timberlake was buried with full military honors.
The circumstances of their marriage led to a political crisis, the Petticoat affair, during President Andrew Jackson's first term in office.