President James Buchanan

Birth	23 APR 1791
Education	1809
Occup	1821-1831
Org.	1829-1831		US House Committee on the Judiciary, Chairperson
Occup	1831-1832		USA Ambassador to Russia
Occup	1834-1845
Org.	1836-1841		US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Chairperson
Occup	1845-1849		USA Secretary of State
Occup	1853-1856		USA Ambassador to United Kingdom
Election	1856		USA Presidential Election
Occup	1857-1861
Death	1 JUN 1868
Grave

Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high collar he wore around his lower jaws, James Buchanan was the only President who never married, but behind that fact lay one of the traumatic experiences of his life.

He was born on April 23, 1791 in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania into a well-to-do family. This Gap was in a wild tract of the Alleghenies and was a passageway for rough and tough wagonmen traveling westward. His father farmed there and ran a store catering to these wagonmen.

When James was about six, his father, prospering, moved his family to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where the father became a leading citizen and a member along with his family of one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in western Pennsylvania. Through the counsel of Dr. John... Read More