It's been quite a hectic opening to September here. Between heavy rainfalls and my regular job being very busy, I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to take my planned birthday trip to Gettysburg this past weekend. I'm happy to report, however, that the trip did indeed happen - my husband Kevin and I had a great time, we learned a lot, and I collected a bunch of markers in Adams County. Gettysburg is something I feel every American should see at least once; I don't have words for the experience, though I'll try to find some for a post later this month.
Meanwhile, this is the blog post I had planned for the last week of August, but schedule conflicts just kept cropping up - as they did this past week too. It's taken me a lot of effort to finally get this thing posted! It's a bit more image-heavy than most of my posts, because there was just so much to see. These are pictures from Kevin's birthday trip back in July, when we visited Lancaster and took a tour of President James Buchanan's beloved home at Wheatland.
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The top marker is on Columbia Avenue
near President Avenue; the second
marker is on President Avenue near
Harrisburg Pike. |
I'm not going to get into the intricacies of Buchanan's politics or Presidency. The man has his own markers throughout Lancaster and he'll get his own blog post another time. I'm also not going to get into a lot of details about his niece/First Lady, Harriet Lane, who was the subject of one of my contributions to the Herstory Club; the link is currently unavailable but I hope to have it back up soon. Following the deaths of their parents, Buchanan became the guardian of Harriet and one of her cousins, James Buchanan "Buck" Henry, and when he purchased Wheatland on the outskirts of Lancaster, he brought both of them there to live with him. He was America's bachelor President, but he raised his wards with the help of his housekeeper, Esther "Miss Hetty" Parker, and he affectionately nicknamed the three of them his "little family."
What I am going to talk about here is, quite simply, the house itself. Wheatland was built not for Buchanan, but for a prominent Lancaster lawyer, William Jenkins. No record survives of the architect's name, but we do know that the property's name comes from the wheat fields which surrounded the mansion house. It was built in 1828, and was the centerpiece of a tract of land consisting of 156.5 acres of Lancaster. In addition to the mansion itself, the property included several satellite buildings, such as a carriage house; most of these have been torn down, although two survive. One is the unusually luxurious privy, which contains multiple seats of varying heights for the ease of use by people of assorted stature. The other is a combination ice house and smokehouse; the upper level of the building was used for smoking meats, and the lower level was for the storage of ice, which was brought into the house as needed.
The mansion house, seen at left from the front lawn, consists of a central section with wings on either side. There are two main floors with parlors, a summer kitchen, a library, and several bedrooms, and a third-floor attic. The cellar served as the kitchen and wine storage, and is not included in modern tours. The whole thing was built in the Federal architectural style, which was fashionable at the time; Federal construction is characterized by a focus on symmetry and Greek features like columns. With few exceptions and most of them very minor, the house looks much today as it did in the 1800s.
Jenkins lived at Wheatland until 1836, at which time he broke up the property. To his son-in-law, Thomas Potter, he sold the parcel of land which included the mansion house and outbuildings; this parcel was just 17.9 acres of the original land mass, although during his ownership Potter added a few more acres which he purchased from a neighbor. He lived there for several years before selling the estate to an attorney from Philadelphia, William Morris Meredith, in 1845. Just three years later, Meredith sold it to the man who was then serving as Secretary of State to President James Polk, and it remained James Buchanan's home for the rest of his life.
Buchanan spent a few years on various assignments overseas, and of course he lived in the White House for four years. Other than those comparatively brief stints, he was always at Wheatland, where he and his "little family" were exceedingly happy together. During his campaign for the Presidency, he gave a number of speeches from the front porch, and it was there that he received a group of well-wishers on the night he won the election. The desk seen at right was carved in India and sent to him as a gift during his Presidency; it's a double-sided desk, with drawers on both sides, crafted to allow two people to work opposite one another. He brought it back to Wheatland with him after he left office, and it sits across from Harriet's piano in one of the first-floor parlors.
According to a sign on the property, Buchanan's favorite part of the Wheatland grounds was the small frog pond. He once remarked that if reincarnation was a real thing, he hoped to come back as one of the frogs which inhabited the spot.
Buchanan died at Wheatland on June 1, 1868. He bequeathed many of the furnishings in the home to his nephew Buck, but the house and land itself he left to his niece Harriet, who by then had married the Baltimore banker Henry Johnston; their eldest son was named after Buchanan. The Johnstons lived primarily at their Baltimore home, and used Wheatland as a summer retreat. It was Harriet who authorized the only significant change that was ever made to the house's interior - she had a bathtub, toilet, and bidet installed on the second floor. The tub and bidet are pictured at left. (Bidets were not common in the United States, but Harriet had accompanied Buchanan during his tenure as Minister to Great Britain, and toured much of Europe during her time there.)
Sadly, between the years 1881 and 1884, Harriet lost both of her children to rheumatic fever and her husband to surgical complications. Devastated, she sold her properties and moved to Washington, D.C. Wheatland was purchased by a family by the name of Willson, and was shared between cousins until 1934, at which time it was put up for sale once again. This would be the last time that it was sold; the Junior League of Lancaster, wanting to preserve the house and grounds for its historical value, raised money to establish the James Buchanan Foundation for the Preservation of Wheatland. They were able to buy Buchanan's beloved home and maintained it until 2009, at which time they merged with the Lancaster County Historical Society.
The joint organization, known today as LancasterHistory (yes, one word), continues to operate Wheatland as a sort of living museum. Many of the furnishings, dishes, and other precious items inside are original to Buchanan and his "little family," including the double-sided desk from India, Harriet's prayer kneeler, and a painting done by nephew Buck; Buck, who was married three times, had several children and still has living descendants who have contributed family heirlooms to the museum. The flooring on the first floor has had to be replaced, owing to the passage of time, but the pattern is the same as it was when Buchanan walked on it. Authentically costumed tour guides (including one charming gentleman who plays the role of Buchanan himself) escort visitors through the rooms and explain the significance of what they see. When Wheatland was closed as part of the lockdowns in 2020, LancasterHistory created the virtual 360-degree tour linked below; so if you'd like to experience it for yourself but can't get there anytime soon, you can still see the beautiful home Buchanan loved so much.
Sources and Further Reading:
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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