Elizabeth Speer Buchanan

Portrait of Elizabeth Buchanan, artist unknown

Elizabeth Buchanan (née Speer; April 16, 1767 - May 14, 1833) was the mother of 15th U.S. President James Buchanan.

Biography

Elizabeth Speer was born on April 16, 1767 on her father's farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.[1] She was the only daughter of Mary (née Patterson) and James Speer, but had four older brothers. She was of Scotch-Irish descent; James Speer, an emigrant from Scotland,[2] had moved with Mary to Pennsylvania in 1756.[3][4] Sometime during Elizabeth's youth the family moved to a plot between Chambersburg and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.[5] Mary Patterson died when Elizabeth was young; Elizabeth became the one henceforth responsible for housework.[6]

Circa 1783 she met and fell in love with James Buchanan Sr., a local tavern keeper's nephew. They married at the Upper West Conococheage Church in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania on April 16, 1788, whereupon she moved into his home at his trading post in Cove Gap.[7][8] The couple had eleven children (five sons and six daughters),[9] eight of whom survived to adulthood; including James and Jane, the mother of first lady Harriet Lane.[10] The first child, Mary, died in 1791 aged two, causing Elizabeth to lavish her affection on James, who had been born shortly before Mary's death; thus he was, until a brother was born when he was fourteen, the family's favorite. In 1796, James Buchanan Sr. moved the family into a house he built near Mercersburg, out of which he ran a shop.[11]

Though she did not receive a complete formal education, she was well-read; she could recite "stanzas of Milton from memory", wrote a poem titled "The Fireside", had a wealth of knowledge about theology[12] and read poetry to her children. She had interests in the poetry of not only Milton but of Alexander Pope, William Cowper and Edward Young.[8] She valued education, particularly for her sons; educated all her children; and enjoyed having arguments with them to nurture their ability to reason.[13][10] She insisted on continuing to do housework even after the family became financially able to hire help.[4][8] She and her husband were Presbyterians who imparted onto their children the same religious beliefs.[14] She withdrew into a "closer study of theology" after the deaths of her husband in 1821 and then of a daughter and two of their sons (George and William).[8]

She died aged 66 on May 14, 1833, at her son-in-law's house in Greensburg, Pennsylvania;[1][15] James Buchanan Jr., who was, at the time, in St. Petersburg, did not find out she had died until his return to the U.S.[16] Her body is buried in Waddell's Graveyard (now Spring Grove Cemetery)[17] north of Mercersburg.[18][19]

References

  1. 1 2 Kochmann, Rachel M. (1995). Presidents : a pictorial guide to the Presidents birthplaces, homes, and burial sites. Osage, MN : Osage Publications. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-9616666-1-3.
  2. ↑ Smith 1932, p. 205.
  3. ↑ Glatfelter, Charles H. (Spring 1946). "Antecedents of Scotch-Irish Presidents". The Historian. Vol. 8, no. 2. pp. 131–139.
  4. 1 2 Gullan 2001, p. 79.
  5. ↑ "James Buchanan, THE BOY". Lancaster Daily Intelligencer. December 21, 1922. p. 1. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
  6. ↑ Klein 1987, p. 2.
  7. ↑ Klein 1987, p. 3.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Worrell, Etta Longshore & Fendrick, C. P. "Elizabeth Speer Buchanan". From pages 95-96 of Notable Women of Pennsylvania, edited by Biddle, Gertrude Bosler & Lowrie, Sarah Dickinson. 1942. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://archive.org/details/bwb_T5-CWP-893
  9. ↑ Baker 2004, pp. 9–12.
  10. 1 2 Foss, William O. (2005). Childhoods of the American presidents. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-7864-2382-8.
  11. ↑ Klein 1987, pp. 3–4.
  12. ↑ Klein 1987, p. 5.
  13. ↑ Gullan 2001, p. 81.
  14. ↑ Hampton 1922, p. 114-115.
  15. ↑ Gullan 2001, p. 84.
  16. ↑ Faber 1968, pp. 207–210.
  17. ↑ Pa, Kittochtinny Historical Society, Chambersburg (1950). Papers Read Before the Kittochtinny Historical Society. p. 301.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ↑ Paull, Elisabeth Maxwell (1915). Paull-Irwin: A Family Sketch. T. R. Marvin & son, printers] Priv. print. p. 196.
  19. ↑ "PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN - A Bit of History about Early Settlers". The Gettysburg Times. March 7, 1962. p. 2. Retrieved 2026-05-30.

Works cited

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.