Friday afternoon, I asked my grandparents to take a tour of President Buchanan's Lancaster home with me. Soon Yuletide tours will begin at Wheatland, so I wanted to learn about Buchanan himself before the normal tour season ended. The Lancaster County Historical Society is located next door to Wheatland, creating the "Lancaster Campus of History" called LancasterHistory.org. As I've mentioned before, the historical society is currently under construction in order to add a lot more space and climate-control. It's looking really good from the outside and we are expecting to begin moving back in just a few weeks!
Before taking the tour, we entered the small visitor center where the folks at LancasterHistory.org have created an excellent and very interesting exhibit on the life of Buchanan. It prepared us well for understanding him before walking through his home. I appreciated the use of very engaging, short, simple stories and objects in order to bring the stories to life. One section even dealt with his failed relationship with the woman he loved! Normally when I go to a museum, I don't read everything that is written on the plaques, but I certainly came close this time! We also watched a 10 minute video that highlighted James Buchanan and the coming of the Civil War. It was well done (in my opinion) and deftly addressed the situation, providing some grace for Buchanan's lack of action, but also not condoning it either. In fact, it was a great example of thinking historically!
Wheatland itself was decorated in the style of the Victorian era, including beautiful china dishes, furniture, and carpeting. Three of the rooms were styled to match sketches that were drawn to showcase life at Wheatland. The rest were decorated in the general style. Our tour guide (who looked like President Buchanan!) knew my grandparents, so it seemed as though he gave us some extra attention and more information than would normally fit into a regular tour. Apparently he also volunteers at Rockford Plantation and Boehm's chapel. He's retired, but he's a busy fellow quite involved with local history! That's exactly what I want to do when I retire some day. Anyway, I learned a lot about the bachelor president Buchanan and his niece Harriet Lane, who served as his First Lady. One of my favorite aspects of history is understanding what it was like to live in a particular era or place, so this was perfect. I think that I got a good glimpse of the quiet life at Wheatland. Buchanan seemed like a kind, gentle man who really enjoyed his retreat into his Lancaster home among the wheat fields.
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