Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson's daughter was ruled illegitimate, and a Kentucky court gave his estate to his brothers

Richard Mentor Johnson inherited Julia Chinn, an enslaved mixed-race woman, when his father died in 1815. They lived as common-law spouses, and she ran his Kentucky household and his school for Native American boys while he was in Congress. They had two daughters, Adaline, born in 1812, and Imogene. Johnson gave them his surname and large farms as dowries when they married white men, Thomas W. Scott and Daniel Pence. Julia Chinn died of cholera in July 1833. Adaline died by 1836. In the 1836 election Virginia's 23 electors refused to vote for Johnson, leaving him one vote short. On 8 February 1837 the Senate elected him vice president, 33 to 16, the only time it has chosen one. After Chinn's death he began a relationship with another woman he enslaved. When she left him for another man, he had her sold at auction. Johnson died in Frankfort on 19 November 1850. The Fayette County Court found that he left no widow, children, father or mother living. It ruled Imogene illegitimate with no right to inherit and divided the estate between his brothers John and Henry. Historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers writes that Johnson had named his daughters in his will. Her book The Vice President's Black Wife was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2023.