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Buchanan’s Birthplace
Buchanan’s
Birthplace
State Park
A Pennsylvania Recreational Guide for
Pennsylvania State Parks Mission
The primary purpose of Pennsylvania state parks is to provide
opportunities for enjoying healthful outdoor recreation and serve as
outdoor classrooms for environmental education. In meeting these
purposes, the conservation of the natural, scenic, aesthetic, and
historical values of parks should be given first consideration.
Stewardship responsibilities should be carried out in a way that
protects the natural outdoor experience for the enjoyment of current
and future generations.
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Printed on recycled paper
BUCHANAN’S BIRTHPLACE STATE PARK
2021
Baltimore oriole
JAMES BUCHANAN (1791-1868)
James Buchanan was the second-born of ten children to Elizabeth Speer and his namesake. When Buchanan was six, the family moved to nearby
Mercersburg where his father became the wealthiest person in town as a merchant, farmer, and entrepreneur. Buchanan attended Dickinson College and
graduated with honors. In 1809, Buchanan moved to Lancaster and apprenticed with a prominent lawyer and was admitted to the bar at age 21. Although
against the War of 1812, when the British invaded Baltimore, Buchanan volunteered with the Pennsylvania militia.
THE MAN FOR THE JOB
James Buchanan’s education and career of
public service shine brightly when compared
to other presidents. Historians often rate his
training for presidential service as perhaps
second only to John Quincy Adams and
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Buchanan became
active in the Federalist Party, the predecessor
of the Democratic Party.
Once nominated, Buchanan never lost an
election during his political career.
2 Terms as a Pennsylvania Assemblyman
1814-1819
Member of the Judiciary Committee.
Member of the Committee on Banks.
10 Years as a U.S. Congressman
1821-1831
Buchanan’s Birthplace State Park is an
18.5-acre park nestled in a gap of Tuscarora
Mountain in Franklin County. The park and
the surrounding forested mountains offer an
abundance of beauty throughout the year.
In addition to the president’s memorial,
there are two picnic pavilions, picnic tables,
charcoal grills, restrooms, and drinking water.
Buck Run flows through the park and hosts a
population of native trout. Pennsylvania Fish
and Boat Commission regulations for wild
trout waters apply to Buck Run.
Directions
GPS DD: Lat. 39.86813 Long. -77.95282
The park is between McConnellsburg and
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, near the village
of Cove Gap along PA 16. From US 30 at Fort
Loudon, take PA 75 south, and follow signs to
Cove Gap and the park.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF A PRESIDENT
While serving as the chairman of the
U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1831,
Buchanan prevented the repeal of a section
of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that would have
given each state the right to interpret the
constitutionality of state and federal laws and
treaties instead of the Supreme Court. The
repeal of the act would have meant a collapse
of the Supreme Court and severely weakened
federal laws.
Became leader of the Pennsylvania
Democratic Party.
2 Years as the Foreign Minister to Russia
1832-1834
Buchanan’s foreign diplomacy enabled
him to secure a trade treaty with Russia that
had eluded others for several years.
10 Years as a U.S. Senator 1833-1843
Became chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee.
Left as one of the most powerful senators.
4 Years as U.S. Secretary of State
1845-1849
Buchanan annexed one third of the
territory of the continental United States
under his signature.
He negotiated the Oregon Territory with
Great Britain in 1845. This included the states
of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts
of Montana.
He signed the annexation of the Republic
of Texas, an area that included the state of
Texas, one-half of New Mexico, and parts of
Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
In 1848, Buchanan concluded the Treaty
of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo which annexed the
remainder of the southwest from Mexico
around Texas and north to the old Louisiana
Purchase Line.
4 Years as Foreign Minister to Great
Britain 1853-1855
Buchanan won Queen Victoria’s favor
while serving as the foreign minister to
Great Britain. This relationship grew stronger
when the anti-British press attacked the
motherland. In 1860, the queen sent her son,
the Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII),
to visit the president. This marked the first
time British royalty visited the United States.
The Buchanan/Queen Victoria friendship
proved beneficial during the Civil War. Queen
Victoria opposed the strong movement in
parliament to recognize the Confederacy in
a move designed to bring needed cotton to
Britain. Had the Confederacy been recognized
by Britain, the outcome of the war may
have changed.
15TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1857-1861
only by compromise between parts could
a federal republic survive;
citizens had to obey the law even when
they thought it unjust;
Stony Batter, Pa., time unknown
Today, Cove Gap is a quiet and remote place.
But on April 23, 1791, the day of James
Buchanan’s birth, it was on the western edge
of the American frontier and alive with the
sights and sounds of a center of commerce.
Although the surrounding Allegheny
Mountains provided a formidable barrier
to those seeking the way to the west, Cove
Gap cut through two of the three parallel
mountains, making the westward journey
a little easier. During those days, anyone
seeking a route west passed through this gap
and by the last mercantile store for
many miles.
James Buchanan’s father bought Tom’s
Trading Place during its heyday in 1789.
The outpost had cabins, barns, stables,
storehouses, store, and orchard. He renamed
it Stony Batter after the Buchanan home in
northern Ireland. Although young when he
left Stony Batter, Buchanan’s first home left a
lasting impression. In 1865, the owner of the
site invited the former president to visit his
birthplace. Buchanan wrote in reply, “It is a
rugged but romantic spot, and the mountain
and mountain stream under the scenery
captivating. I have warm attachments for it...”
the question of morality could not be
settled by political action.
This 1856 campaign token has "The Crisis
Demands His Election" on the back.
In the presidential election of 1856,
Republican Millard Fillmore’s re-election bid
was overshadowed by the conflict over the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. Whig candidate John
C. Fremont had violent antislavery supporters
who wanted the North to withdraw from
the slave states. Buchanan ran with John C.
Breckinridge as his vice president on a “Save
the Union” platform.
Buchanan’s solid reputation both at home
and abroad led to his election as the 15th
President of the United States on March 4,
1857. Once in office, Buchanan excluded
extremists from his cabinet, choosing
conservative and nationalist politicians.
Buchanan personally opposed slavery, but
as a public official was bound to sustain it
where sanctioned by law. Buchanan governed
on three fundamental convictions:
Buchanan understood the Constitution
nearly as well as its author James Madison.
Buchanan held Madison’s views of how the
Constitution was supposed to work, not as
a logical document or as a consolidating
document, but as a human document with
interpretation that depended upon current
wisdom to succeed. Buchanan was also
instrumental in having Madison’s notes on the
1787 Constitutional Convention turned over
to the federal government and
eventually printed.
Three states joined the Union under
Buchanan’s signature; Minnesota in 1858,
Oregon in 1859, and Kansas in 1861.
In December of 1860, Buchanan presented
his 4th Annual Message to Congress in
which he explained his basic policy. The
northern press condemned his policy as
weak, vacillating, pro-southern, and even
treasonable. On March 4, 1861, President
Abraham Lincoln gave his inaugural address.
Some newspapers said his policy was
forceful, brave, patriotic, manly, decisive, and
firm, even though Lincoln’s inaugural address
repeats in some places the same terminology
used in Buchanan’s earlier policy statements.
POST PRESIDENCY
Mercersburg, Pa., 1908
Mercersburg, Pa., 2012
After Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, James Buchanan retired to his home, Wheatland, in
Lancaster. On May 30, 1868, Buchanan gave his last public statement from his bed the day before
he died.
“My dear friend, I have no fear for the future. Posterity will do me justice. I have always felt, and
still feel that I discharged every public duty imposed upon me conscientiously. I have no regret for
any public act of my life and history will vindicate my memory from every unjust aspersion.”
Wheatland is operated by the James Buchanan Foundation and is open to the public.
www.wheatland.org
Lincoln’s election triggered the secession
of South Carolina on December 20, 1860.
Buchanan, now a lame duck president,
urged Lincoln to join him in a call for a
constitutional convention to gain time and
place the matter of secession before a body
more responsible than congress. When
Lincoln rejected the proposal, southern
members of Buchanan’s cabinet resigned
and seven deep south states formed the
Confederate States of America.
President Buchanan remade his cabinet
of strong Union men, most of whom later
served in the Lincoln administration.
Republican legislators blocked anything
Buchanan proposed, believing that their party
would gain credit for settling the crises after
the change of administration on March 4.
However, Buchanan did succeed in finishing
his term, retaining eight of the 15 slave states
in the Union and finished his term
without bloodshed.
During Buchanan’s term as president:
his policy kept peace; the armed forces
were on alert; he suggested a Constitutional
Convention on slavery; and he pledged
the federal government would enforce the
law where practical, but not commit armed
aggression against the South. Lincoln
followed the same policy until the firing
on Fort Sumter which required a military
response and brought on the American
Civil War.
HARRIET LANE JOHNSTON (1830-1903)
The youngest child of James Buchanan’s
sister Jane, Harriet Lane lived a life of great
triumphs and heartbreaking tragedies. She
was born May 9, 1830, in Mercersburg,
Pennsylvania. At age nine, she lost her
mother, followed a year later by the loss of
her father. Harriet and her older sister were
allowed to choose who they wished to live
with. Harriet chose her favorite uncle, James
Buchanan, who became her guardian in
1842. Harriet’s cousin, James B. Henry, also
orphaned, became Buchanan’s ward.
Buchanan arranged for Harriet’s education
and refinement. First, a year at the Maiden
Crawford Sister’s Boarding School in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Second, to a
Charleston, Virginia, boarding school run by
her cousin, which was also attended by her
sister. To round out her education, Harriet
spent two years at the Georgetown
Visitation Convent.
In 1854, Harriet joined her uncle in
England where she was well-liked by Queen
Victoria. James Buchanan became the 15th
President of the United States in 1857. Since
Buchanan never married, Harriet acted as
first lady. It is said that she filled the White
House with gaiety and flowers, guided its
social life with enthusiasm and discretion,
and had a captivating mixture of spontaneity
and poise. First Lady Harriet also pursued
humanitarian causes such as hospital reform,
prison improvement, and better treatment of
Indigenous peoples. The Chippewa named her
“the Great Mother of the Indians.”
During the Civil War, Harriet volunteered
for four years as a nurse in the Division of
the Unknown Heroines. In 1866, at the age
of 36, she married Henry Elliott Johnston, a
Baltimore banker. Tragedy struck soon after
when beloved Uncle James died in 1868.
In the course of three years, she lost her
immediate family. Her son James, age 14,
died in 1881, followed 19 months later by
Henry, Jr, age 12. Both likely succumbed to
rheumatic fever. In 1884, her husband died
of pneumonia. Harriet moved to Washington
D.C. and worked for humanitarian purposes.
She financed the publishing of the twovolume biography of James Buchanan by
George Ticknor Curtis in 1883. Harriet Lane
Johnston died on July 3, 1903 at the age of 73.
boulder in its natural state. In December 1906,
the Baltimore Sun stated, “an agent of the
trustees is even now searching the mountain
range to find a native boulder.” Why a boulder
was not used for the monument is unknown.
Perhaps the difficulty in moving such a large
stone made it impractical.
The architectural firm, Wyatt and Nolting
of Baltimore, Maryland, designed the
monument in pyramid form, 38 feet square
and 31 feet high. The inscription tablet,
sill, seat, and cap are constructed of 50 tons
of hammered American gray granite. The
pyramid structure contains 600 tons of native
rubble and mortar. All faces of the stone show
the original weathered surface.
Work began on the monument in October
1907 with a work force of 20 men. A small
railroad was built to help the workers move
the stone from the mountainside to the
monument site. By November, the work force
had increased to 35 men, and on November
15, 1907, the monument was complete. The
final instructions of the will for Stony Batter
requested that the monument be enclosed in
an iron railing for protection. The remaining
grounds were for the enjoyment of the people
of Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Legislative Session
of 1911 gave authorization for the
commonwealth to accept the 18.5-acre James
Buchanan Monument from the only surviving
trustee, Lawrason Riggs.
In her will she left money to create
memorials to her uncle and get his
letters published. The will left
money and provisions for many
charities. Her art collection
became the core of the new
National Gallery of Art
in 1906. The National
Cathedral School for
Boys, now Saint Albans
School in Washington,
D.C., opened in 1909.
The Harriet Lane
Home for Invalid Children became the
nation’s first children’s hospital in 1912 and
became the teaching and research center in
pediatrics for Johns Hopkins University.
The Harriett Lane Handbook is in its
22nd edition as a guide for pediatric
doctors.
Three U.S Coast Guard cutters bore
the name Harriet Lane, and the last is
still in service.
A QUEST FOR HONOR
1908
Harriet Lane Johnston’s quest to honor her
uncle through the creation of a monument
began in the early 1880s. She made several
attempts to purchase James Buchanan’s
birthplace, Stony Batter, but was unsuccessful
throughout her lifetime.
In 1895, at the age of 65, Harriet Lane
Johnston prepared her will with a provision
for two monuments. Her will stated that upon
her death $100,000 would be used to set up
the James Buchanan Monument Fund. She
chose a four-member board of trustees before
her death to pursue her dream of a lasting
tribute to her uncle. The will stipulated that
the board had 15 years to build a monument
at Stony Batter and/or receive permission
from Congress to erect a statue in Washington
D.C. If unsuccessful in the allotted time, the
funds would go to the Harriet Lane Home for
Invalid Children.
At Harriet’s death, the will was executed
and the process was set into motion to build
the two monuments for her beloved uncle.
Unfortunately, by the time of the will’s
execution, two of the trustees had passed
away. The task of securing a lasting tribute to
James Buchanan rested with two men E. Francis Riggs, a Washington, D.C., banker,
and Lawrason Riggs, a Baltimore lawyer.
Lawrason became the driving force in making
Harriet’s dream a reality.
Stony Batter
Mr. D. Shannon acquired Stony Batter in
1865. He refused several offers by Harriet
to buy the land. In 1906, the Shannon heirs
agreed to sell Stony Batter to the James
Buchanan Monument Fund. Harriet’s will
outlined that the trustees were to erect a
monument with “proper inscriptions” and
suggested the monument be a huge rock or
1928
A MONUMENT FOR THE CAPITAL
“The incorruptible statesman whose walk was
upon the mountain ranges of the law.”
– Jeremiah S. Black 1868
The most difficult task given to the trustees
was left to Lawrason Riggs, alone. He sought
permission from the U.S. Congress to erect a
monument to James Buchanan in Washington,
D.C. Harriet’s will outlined that a quote from
friend and former cabinet member, Jeremiah
S. Black, be placed on the pedestal of
the statue.
The trustees met soon after the reading
of the will to select a sculptor and architect
for the Washington, D.C. statue. The
National Commission of Fine Arts approved
the trustees’ selection and plans for the
monument, and suggested the south end of
Meridian Hill Park as a site. The resolution
to create the Buchanan’s memorial passed
congress on June 18, 1918, by a vote of 51 to
11, six days before the will’s
15-year deadline.
World War I and the Great Depression
brought many delays, and progress on the
memorial was slow. On June 26, 1930, the
memorial was unveiled, a 9.5-foot bronze
statue on a granite pedestal in front of an
82-foot panel with two carved figures at
each end representing law and diplomacy.
President Herbert Hoover accepted the
monument for the citizens of the
United States.
2017
Run
Knobsville
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Parking ADA Accessible
MONUMENT
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Access for People with Disabilities
This symbol indicates facilities and
activities that are Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) accessible for people with
disabilities. This publication text is available
in alternative formats.
If you need an accommodation to
participate in park activities due to a
disability, please contact the park you plan to
visit.
In an Emergency
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Rev. 1/06/21
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Prevent tick bites by wearing clothing treated with
tick repellent. Avoid areas with brush, leaf litter,
or tall grass. Stay on the trail.
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks
Information on nearby attractions is available
from the Franklin County Visitors Bureau.
www.explorefranklincountypa.com
Nearby Cowans Gap State Park offers
swimming, boating, fishing, picnicking,
hiking, hunting, camping, rustic cabins,
organized group camping, a visitor center, and
environmental education programs.
Buchanan’s Birthplace participates in a
carry-in/carry out trash disposal program for
small parks. There are no trash collection or
recycling facilities. Visitors are asked to limit
the number of disposable items brought to the
park and take all trash and recyclables home.
Protect and Preserve our Parks
Please make your visit safe and enjoyable.
Obey all posted rules and regulations and
respect fellow visitors and the resources of
the park.
• Be prepared and bring the proper equipment.
Natural areas may possess hazards. Your
personal safety and that of your family are
your responsibility.
• Camping is prohibited in the park.
• Alcoholic beverages are prohibited.
Blacklegged tick (deer tick)
S tony
Nearby Attractions
Trash Disposal and Recycling
100 METERS
Buc k
200
@CowansGapSP
Mailing Address
c/o Cowans Gap State Park
6235 Aughwick Road
Fort Loudon, PA 17224-9801
717-485-3948
CowansGapSP@pa.gov
An Equal Opportunity Employer
www.visitPAparks.com
NEAREST HOSPITAL
Fulton County Medical Center
214 Peach Orchard Road
McConnellsburg, PA 17233
717-485-3155
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Make online reservations at
www.visitPAparks.com or call toll-free
888-PA-PARKS (888-727-2757), 7:00 AM to
5:00 PM, Monday to Saturday.
Call 911 and contact a park employee.
Directions to the nearest hospital are posted
on bulletin boards.
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CONTOURS ARE
ON 50 FT. INTERVALS
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Coleman
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Richmond Rd.
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BUCHANAN’S
BIRTHPLACE
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Blue Symbols
Mean ADA Accessible
Buchanan’s Birthplace State Park
Street Address
2831 Stony Batter Road
Mercersburg, PA 17236
GPS DD: Lat. 39.86813 Long. -77.95282
Buck
Buchanan
FRANKLIN COUNTY
Picnicking
INFORMATION AND RESERVATIONS
Old
BUCHANAN’S BIRTHPLACE
STATE PARK
Actual size
• Prevent forest fires by having a fire in proper
facilities and properly disposing of hot coals.
Do not leave a fire unattended.
• Because uncontrolled pets may chase
wildlife or frighten visitors, pets must be
physically controlled, attended at all times,
and on a leash, caged, or crated. Electronic
fences and leashes are prohibited.