In the years just before the start of the Civil War, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania was the most important man in America.

As President of the United States, he became embroiled in the controversial issues over slavery. People looked to him to solve the dilemmas that angered both the North and the South.

The events of the time have been recorded and analyzed many times by critics, scholars and historians. But Buchanan's personality seems to have been forgotten.

What kind of a person was he? Portraits of him show that he had broad shoulders, fair complexion, abundant white hair and a thoughtful, worried expression. He was tall, elderly, dignified.

"He was, on the whole, a distinguished looking and handsome man, and his size and fine proportions gave a dignity and commanding air to his personal presence," wrote his nephew, James Buchanan Henry, the President's White House secretary for two years. Buchanan rose through the ranks of public service of the highest office in the land despite a peculiar handicap that would have discouraged many men.

He was near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other. When he spoke he usually tilted his head to one side like birds often do. When listening, he would hold his head in this manner, close one eye and gaze very steadily at the speaker. People got the impression that he was looking them through and through. One eye was deep blue and the other hazel. There was a startling effect when he suddenly popped open both eyes.

He did not know until he was about forty years old the reason why he could not see well. At the suggestion of a friend he tested his eyes by holding a hand over one and then the other. To his surprise he discovered that with one eye he could not distinguish the landscape at all, and with the other he could see very far.

Despite his ailment he was an insatiable reader. He used eyeglasses only after he retired from the presidency, and then only to scan fine print. At night, Buchanan would hold a candle flame over his papers no matter how many other lights might be on.

Annie Buchanan, the President's niece and companion in his retirement years, recalled how worried she was about this practice. "As he grew older," she wrote, "we often felt quite anxious for fear his paper might take fire and, occasionally, on the next morning a hole would be found burnt in it."

He read extensively from the classics and could converse intelligently on all subjects. Sometimes his eyes bothered him, however, and he would ask one of his nieces to read aloud.

The President also had an exceptional sense of hearing. He had the unusual ability to hear whispering at great distances and could even distinguish conversation in an adjoining room.

"He very often heard things not intended for his ears," Annie remarked.

His clothes may have enhanced the Buchanan aura. In an era of radical arguments and behavior, he gave the appearance of solid, quiet calm. Buchanan dressed entirely in black, set off by a white shirt and a large, white cravat.

His Lancaster friends called him Jim or Jimmy, and most everyone else nicknamed him "Old Buck." Critics sometimes called him "The Squire." His name in the north was pronounced "Bew-cannon" but in the south it was "Buck-an-an."

He had an extraordinary memory and could repeat verbatim much of the classic authors of his college days at Dickinson.

He was considered an average public speaker but a remarkably fluent conversationalist. "My uncle had the most delightful way of throwing himself back into past scenes of his life and, as it were, living them over again," Annie said. "He would tell you the position of affairs, make you understand the point of the story thoroughly, and then laugh in a most infectious way.

"When he was in a vein of conversation and felt in the humor of going back into the past, a whole room full of people would sit all evening listening with delight, no one daring to interrupt, except in order, by some leading questions or remark, to draw him out to talk more freely."

Buchanan, born in a log cabin in central Pennsylvania, came from a very large family. His mother gave birth to eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. Most of Buchanan's brothers and sisters died in early adulthood, leaving numerous small children. Buchanan, as the most prosperous relative, assumed responsibility for many of them.

In 1852, Buchanan had twenty-two nieces and nephews and thirteen grand nephews and grand nieces. Seven were orphans in his full care, several others were half-orphans whom he was helping to support, and he was personally concerned with the affairs of most of them.

Buchanan's favorites were two orphans, Harriet Lane and James Buchanan Henry, a niece and a nephew. Buchanan adopted Harriet when she was nine and Jim when he was seven, and raised both as his wards. He wanted his nephew to follow in his footsteps as an attorney, and paid for his college education at Princeton College. Harriet, meanwhile, attended school at a Catholic convent in Washington where she excelled in music.

Both accompanied Buchanan to Washington where Harriet became the official White House hostess and Jim his secretary. Jim quit after two years because of a dispute with the President over his desire to grow a mustache. He went to New York City where he grew one of sizable proportions, married without Buchanan's permission and established a law practice. Harriet, however, remained with Buchanan until she married at the age of thirty-six.

When the two wards were children Buchanan decided he needed assistance in managing his house and supervising their upbringing, He solved the problem by hiring a housekeeper, Esther "Miss Hetty' Parker in 1834. She was a niece of the proprietor of The White Swan Hotel in Lancaster and worked there during the summer. Miss Hetty promptly moved into the Buchanan household and took charge.

Jim recalled that Miss Hetty was always treated "as a valuable member of the family and a friend. She was always present at the table and dispensed the hospitalities of my uncle's house until my cousin (Harriet Lane) had grown to womanhood and assumed a part of such duties."

Jim said Miss Hetty "continued to be one of the family and to perform her duties most acceptably to Mr. Buchanan through the remainder of his life."

Jim attributed Buchanan's excellent financial status to Miss Hetty's economy and vigilant care of his interests.

"Miss Hetty was, for nearly forty years, his faithful attendant in health and nurse in sickness, and he was so much attached to her that I have often heard him say that nothing should ever part her from him while he lived, He would let her do what she pleased and even scold him without rebuke - a privilege I never knew him to accord to anyone else."

In 1848 Buchanan felt the need for a larger, more elegant home, and purchased Wheatland, a suburban mansion that had been built years earlier by William Jenkins, a Lancaster banker. Buchanan lived there for twenty years until his death.

During the Civil War, Confederate troops reached the Susquehanna River, only seven miles from Wheatland, and thousands of Pennsylvanians fled from the area. Buchanan, however, ignored the advice of anxious friends and insisted on remaining at his home.

Buchanan, a Presbyterian, was an unusually religious person. He said his prayers almost every night before going to bed, attended worship services regularly on Sunday and donated large sums to various churches. He often read excerpts from a well-thumbed volume of sermons in French by Massillon, a noted European clergyman.

Because of his strong religious upbringing, Buchanan insisted that Sunday be a day of rest. He sincerely believed in all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity and made certain that his two wards, Harriet and Jim, abided by his standards.

"I remember that she and I always hid away our secular newspaper or novel on Sunday if we heard him approaching," Jim recalled. "Otherwise we were pretty sure to get a mild rebuke for not better employing our time on Sunday, either in good works or at least in better reading."

Buchanan's religious beliefs created a problem when he was the ambassador to Russia. It was the custom there for even the most devout, after attending Sunday church services, to go to balls and festivities in the evening.

"My uncle thought that he could not be excused from attending the emperor's balls," Annie wrote, "but made it a rule never to dance on Sunday evening, and so caused great surprise to some of his friends there, especially when he explained to them that in America the manner prevalent in Russia of spending Sunday evenings would be quite shocking."

Buchanan prohibited dancing in the White House and frowned on card playing. However, when the Prince of Wales visited Washington in 1860, Buchanan made an exception. He allowed cards in the White House and dancing aboard the revenue cutter Harriet Lane for the prince and his party.

During his term Buchanan maintained a set routine. The family arose at about 6 a.m. and breakfasted until 8. He usually wore a long robe with slippers while eating. Then he changed clothes and went directly to his second floor office, where he usually spent the morning receiving visitors.

At the same time, the nephew worked in an adjacent room reading and sorting mail, keeping some for the President's consideration and forwarding some to the various departments of the government.

Buchanan ate lunch routinely from noon to 1 p.m. Afternoons were spent almost daily in meetings with his Cabinet. As he examined his papers, he usually chewed on an unlit cigar, saving it until evening to light up.

Buchanan wrote his own speeches with meticulous care, often redrafting them five or six times.

He had a custom of taking a walk each afternoon at 4 o'clock around Lafayette Park and the residential area north of the White House.

In the evening, the President dined with his family, including Miss Hetty when she was in Washington. Buchanan invited one or two Cabinet families and a few friends weekly to dinners, seldom more than fifteen in all. When Congress was in session Buchanan often hosted dinners for forty or more for such groups as justices of the Supreme Court, senators, representatives, diplomats, military officers and important foreign visitors. Harriet was usually on hand for these occasions, making certain that proper protocol was followed.

Although Buchanan was respected and likable some of his associates actually feared him. Jeremiah Black, the attorney general, said, "He's a stubborn old gentleman, very fond of having his own way, and I don't know what his way is."

Another cabinet member remarked that they stood in awe of him like boys in the presence of their schoolmaster, and called him "The Squire" behind his back. A female acquaintance called him "The Grand Turk."

Buchanan had a habit of disconcerting his friends. He was unusually inquisitive about the personal affairs of associates. On one occasion he flustered a member of the Cabinet by inquiring in great detail about his wife's finances.

He kept Harriet under firm restraint, even prying into her personal life. Harriet, who was in her late twenties during her White House years, found it particularly exasperating when the President opened her personal mail. On such letters he would write, "I know not whether it contains ought of love or treason."

Harriet found a way to communicate with a friend, Sophie Plitt, in Philadelphia. Learning that her uncle regularly received fresh butter in a locked, brassbound kettle from Philadelphia, she obtained a set of keys from the White House steward and sent one to her friend. During the last years of Buchanan's administration, Harriet and Sophie were able to send their private mail "via the kettle" as they wrote on the envelopes. Sophie pointed out to Harriet that she could escape her uncle's scrutiny if she married, but she refused to act in haste.

Buchanan made a substantial amount of money in the stock market, kept close tabs on his personal finances and made sure that Harriet, while she was White House hostess, did not spend government money excessively.

Buchanan received numerous gifts while he was president, but he turned them over to the Patent Office. Most are now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Buchanan ate and drank heartily, developing a rotund waistline in his advanced years. One of his favorite dishes was Pennsylvania Dutch sauerkraut. He kept Wheatland and the White House well stocked with alcoholic beverages, preferring Madeira and sherry. He also occasionally sipped rye whiskey.

"He was no single-bottle man either," a friend wrote. He would dispose of two or three at a sitting, beginning with a stiff jorum and finishing off with a couple glasses of old rye whiskey."

Friends marveled at his ability to hold his liquor, displaying no faltering steps, flushed cheeks or headache. When at Wheatland, Buchanan sometimes drove to John Baer's distillery for a ten-gallon cask of "Old J.B. Whiskey," which he considered among the best. The initials, he would tell friends jokingly, stood for James Buchanan.

On more than one occasion, he invited neighborhood volunteer firemen to Wheatland to join in the liquid hospitality. Buchanan, one of the nations most diligent presidents, seldom took time off from his duties. He returned to his home in Lancaster only three times for brief visits, and made only one presidential trip during the four years he served. However, he disliked hot weather and vacationed for two weeks each summer at Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, a noted spa nestled in the Allegheny Mountains. He started going there when he was a young man, and continued annual visits almost until his death. While in Washington, he fled from the humid weather by shifting his living quarters from the White House to a cottage at the Soldiers' Home three miles away.

Buchanan strongly believed in education and played a major role in the development of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. He sponsored the transferal of Marshall College from Mercersburg, where he was born, to Lancaster, and supervised its union with well-established Franklin College. Buchanan donated funds to the institution and served as president of its board of trustees for many years.

Buchanan has the distinction of being the nation's only bachelor president. Numerous rumors about possible romantic attachments circulated in Washington, especially during his tenure as president, but nothing came of them. It wasn't that Buchanan was shy. Actually, he enjoyed female companionship.

"He was very fond of ladies' society," Annie wrote, "and was all his life in the habit of entertaining them at his house."

Buchanan was rumored to have had designs on nearly a dozen women, including Sarah Childress Polk, widow of President Polk; Elizabeth Craig, a Georgia beauty, Mrs. Bass, a Virginia widow with three small children, and fourteen-year-old Mary Snyder, granddaughter of a Pennsylvania governor.

No one knows exactly why Buchanan failed to marry, but the most likely reason seems to be a romance in Lancaster that ended in tragedy. In 1818, when he was twenty-eight, Buchanan was smitten with Ann Caroline Coleman, an attractive dark-haired daughter of iron master Robert Coleman, reputed to be the wealthiest man in Pennsylvania.

Ann's parents, especially her mother, strongly disapproved of the match, and considered the young attorney a fortune seeker.

During their courtship Buchanan went to Philadelphia on legal business. He was away for two weeks. Ann failed to receive any letters from him, possibly because her mother intercepted them. On his return, he stopped first at the home of his client, William Jenkins, a bank president and was surprised there to see Grace Hubley, Mrs. Jenkins sister. Buchanan at one time had dated Grace but their relationship had long ago ended. Nevertheless, Grace sent a note to Ann, unknown to Buchanan, saying that he had stopped to see her first. When he finally arrived at the Coleman home a servant curtly informed him that Ann would not see him.

Ann wrote an agitated letter terminating the engagement and the next day went to Philadelphia to stay with a married sister, Margaret Hemphill. Severely distraught and depressed, she became hysterical at her sister's home. A servant was sent to the apothecary's for laudanum, and Ann took a large dose of the medication. Tragically, she died that night.

Judge Thomas Kittera, a friend of the family, wrote this about the woman's death: "It is the first instance (Dr.Chapman) ever heard of hysteria producing death."

Stunned, Buchanan wrote to Ann's father: "I have lost the only object of my affection without whom life now presents a dreary blank. I now have one request to make for the love of your dear departed daughter whom I infinitely loved more than any human being could love. Deny me not. Afford me the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before its interment.... I would like to follow the remains to the grave as a mourner. I feel that happiness has fled me forever."

The letter was returned unopened. Philip S. Klein, Buchanan's biographer, wrote of the incident, "The horror of the tragedy to Buchanan lay in the awful fact that no one actually knew what happened. Did she commit suicide or make a mistake? Was Ann's death purposeful or accidental? The question remains unanswered to this day, and Buchanan spent the rest of his life haunted by hideous uncertainty."

Buchanan's presidential years were filled with controversy as he tried to avert the Civil War. He was called timid, weak, timeserving and even traitor by both northern and southern hotheads, and spent his retirement writing a book defending his decisions.

Nevertheless, when he died in 1868, a huge number of people from all walks of life - including friends and foes in Washington, New York and Philadelphia - jammed the small Borough of Lancaster for the funeral. The press estimated the crowd at twenty thousand. Church bells throughout the town pealed in mourning and the funeral cortege stretched for miles.

The memory of James Buchanan has been preserved permanently. Lancaster has a Buchanan school, Buchanan Park, Buchanan Boulevard and a President Avenue. His home, Wheatland, stands today preserved for public study and enlightenment.

And, in the nearby park, a statue of President Buchanan stands dressed in his customary black clothing. Old Buck appears ready for his daily afternoon walk. His head is tilted slightly and he stares straight ahead, both eyes open, looking forever at the future.

Copyright ©Charles Kessler 2003
All rights reserved

About the Author

After working as a journalist for twenty-five years in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Charles H. Kessler is spending his retirement years delving into the activities of the community's historical figures. He has written articles about such personalities as Thaddeus Stevens, General Edward Hand, Benjamin West, and Robert Fulton. A previous book, "Lancaster in the Revolution," describes what happened to Lancaster's participants in the Revolutionary War. Another publication by Kessler, "Lancaster and the Constitution," reveals how Lancaster's leaders were partly responsible for the adoption of the Bill of Rights. He has been employed as a newspaper reporter, copy editor and headline writer. In 1991 he served on a special committee of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to plan the 200th birthday observance of President James Buchanan. Kessler studied journalism at the University of North Carolina and is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College '70. He served in a tank destroyer battalion in World War II.

Kessler has just completed a historical book about the last year of Buchanan's presidency, in which he wrangled with many constitutional and societal questions. To learn more about this book, please click here. (Page will open in popup window.)

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