Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-09
QDBio Statesman.
from the New York worldI
The LATE JAMES BUCHANAN.

THE LATE JAMES BUCHANAN
The Funeral Ceremonies at Vvhea,
land-Incidents of MIR. Buchan
ans Last Moments.
LANCASTER, Pa, June a.
| A mile and half almost due ives
from the quaint, steep-gabled town o
Lancaster is plain villa of red bricl
of two stories and an attic as to tn,
body and three sheer stories as to the
wings. 1t stands perhaps hundred
feet back from the macadamized turn.
| pike, from which it is screened by 8
plantation of locusts and evergreens. A
whitewashed fence divides it from the
public path, and two plain wooden gates
| give admission to it. The windows Of
the lower story are secured by the ugly
| white shutters so common in Pennsyl
vania, and over either tip of the wing is
woven garment of the Virginia cree
per. The place has. been carelessly
kept of late, and stranger stumbles
over the hoops set for last years Gro.
quet but now hidden under Nthe braided
blooms, unknown and stimulated by the
recent rains. The stables and Offices are
all plain whitewashed sheds, and in the
house are two dingy carriages, three fine
horses of the Pennsylvania breed, and a
brindled COW. But from the portico
which tops the sloping lawn is such a
bucolic prospect as can hardly be looked
upon elsewhere. Upon the dappled
clouds of June morning the cham
paigne stretches away to the southwest
in varying undulations of rich mead
ow and dense woodland, till it is lost in
the dim, dull, distant blue of the ridges
of the FORK hills. The intervals are fill
ed by country spotted here and there
with native growths of forest, but for the
mostepart rich with such vernal vegeta-
tion as only tillage hardly paralleled
elsewhere in the world can produce
Nearer, and on every hand, spreads the
stoneless soil from which the domain
derives Its proper name of Wheatland.
From the east come murmurs of the busy
hum OF men in Lancaster, but all besides
is absolute silence. The whole place is
one for which evidently man of domes-
tic tastes might form passionate attach.
ment, and for which, much more, wife.
less and childless man might have an
almost feline fondness. Such man was
James Buchanan, the fifteenth President
of the United States and the laird of
Wheatland, who has lived here for twen-
ty years past, and who died last Sunday
night in yonder room at the southwest
corner of the main mansion. The room,
which has always been his own favorite
choice, is plain chamber, with four
post bedstead, on which during his last
sickness he lay, with no other books in it
than great calf-bound family Bible, and
no other ornaments than two pieces of
old-fashioned embroidery, done by his
mother when he was child, and mark
ed in the corners, 81. Buchanan" In
deed, the whole house is as simple as it is
solid-only one or two sumptuous pieces
of carved wood or painted canvas tell to
the eye that the late tenant was more
than the plainest country gentleman.-I
But the house is such an one as a gen.
tleman might wish to live in and die in,
plain but honest, and with no suspicion
In structure or decoration of the cheap
and nasty about it. From the door de-
pends to-day yard of Grape, and the
shutters are all closed. In the ample
hall which bisects the house is laid the |
coffin of the owner of it, hallowed by no
tear ofwidow or orphan, but consecrated
in the respect of hundreds of mourners
from far and near, who crowd the house |
and trample the long grass of the lawn,
and whose vehicles wake the sleeping
echoes of the road.
believe that it has been told in pri-
vate before how Mr.. Buchanan came to
lead his long life alone; but the story
will bear repetition. In very early life
he engaged to marry young lady of
Lancaster, but gossips came to her with
a story of his infdelity. She denied
herself to him, and went away soon af-
ter to die of a broken heart. His heart
was of sterner stuff, and he lived on,
achieving every honor that his town, his
county, and his State could in their
turns bestow on him. But it was a
heartless task to him, and now at last he
has followed her, with no reluctance to
quit world from which the bloom died
off full fifty years ago. There is indeed
touching similarity between his career
and that of another famous man, who
died only the other day, as it seems, at
an age almost equally advanced. Both
lost their youth in equal measure; both
struggled stoutly in achieving in their
different walks the favor of their coun-
trymen, and both have died-the one at
Wheatland, the other, at Sunnyside-
leaving behind them the record of their
lives, led not for pleasure nor ambition,
but for dutY's sake; which ought not to
be without an influence on statesmen
and on writers. But while in the case
Of Irving the world gave him credit of
and generosity, Mr..
Buchanan had the name of being
cold. 1t is only necessary to go
about among his old neighbors ,
and friends here, from the lawyer
who was his most trusted friend to his
black barber, to learn how unjust such
was. "Why, sir" the latter 5
told me, che did MT know what it was to ]
give rough answer to man, woman, or |
child" In the height of party rancor,
when his policy was assailed in such i
manner as only can be in the fiercest :
lines, the most violent man forebore to
ouch private chamber which was and !;
'emains immaculate. Those who were =
admitted to the hospitalities of his home r
snew how genial he was, what a store :
If stories he had for every listener, how
women and little children loved him. 9
md how he had their confidence. It 6
vas not because he held high public r
rusts, but because he was good citi-
zen, good neighbor, and a good man >
Inr 4 =