He is remembered for his efforts to assist the increasing population of Irish Catholic immigrants to the diocese and for his humility and dedication to service.

[1][2][3] Deciding to become a priest, Tyler completed his classical training at an academy run by Virgil Barber in Claremont.

After his ordination, Tyler spent one year serving as a curate at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston.

[1] In early 1843, during the Fifth Plenary Council of Baltimore, Fenwick asked the bishops to endorse the splitting of Rhode and Connecticut into a separate diocese to reduce his administrative workload.

Tyler received his episcopal consecration on March 17, 1844 from Fenwick, with Bishops Richard Whelan and Andrew Byrne serving as co-consecrators, at Assumption Cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland.

[1][3] During the 1840's, the introduction of textile mills and other factories in Southern New England started drawing in large numbers of Irish Catholic immigrants.

Concerned about the education of the children in these family, Tyler in 1847 invited religious sisters from the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary to open the first Catholic school in Providence.

A friend remarked that any stable in the city was better than the episcopal residence, and that it "...could easily have been drawn by oxen from one end of Providence to the other".

[8] With the establishment of mills and factories in Southern New England in the 1830's, more Catholic Irish and French-Canadian immigrants started arriving in Rhode Island and Connecticut.