History
On November 20, 1824, over 403 acres (163 ha) of land was turned over to a bank in Lancaster by a farmer. The bank sold 165 acres (67 ha) and 68 square perches (18,513 ft2; 1,720 m2) of that land, on January 29, 1828, for $11,731.871⁄2 ($248,289 in 2012 dollars), through the use of a straw man, to William Jenkins, a lawyer and, then, president of said bank. Jenkins had a house constructed on the property and named it "The Wheatlands", either after the surrounding wheatfields or because the site of the house used to be a wheatfield. Jenkins sold 17 acres (6.9 ha) and 253⁄4 square perches (7,010 ft2; 651 m2) of land, including the house, to his son-in-law in 1841. William M. Meredith bought the same plot on May 8, 1845, plus an additional 5 acres (2.0 ha), for $6,750 ($168,364 in 2012 dollars). Meredith used it as primarily a summer house and as a home for his wife and children; Meredith's duties as head of the bar in Philadelphia prevented him from living at Wheatland on a permanent basis.
Wheatland was put up for sale by Meredith and was contacted in June 1848 by the Secretary of State James Buchanan, who was interested in the house. The sale of Wheatland was delayed by Meredith, who was not sure whether he really wanted the sell the estate, and by Buchanan, who did not want to force Meredith into making a decision he might regret. Wheatland was sold in December 1848 at the same price that Meredith had purchased it at; Buchanan moved into the mansion several months later, accompanied by his niece, Harriet Lane, and nephew, James Buchanan "Buck" Henry, and his housekeeper, Esther "Miss Hetty" Parker. Buchanan ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in the 1852 election, however he was appointed the Minister to Great Britain by the newly elected Franklin Pierce. Buchanan did not return to the United States, and to Wheatland, until 1856.
Not long after arriving back at Wheatland, Buchanan was nominated by the Democratic Party to be its candidate for President on June 9, 1856. Buchanan did not tour the country as part of the campaign. Instead, he conducted it from Wheatland as a "front porch campaign". Buchanan won the election and carried all of the Southern states, with most of the votes in the Northern states going to the Republican nominee John C. Frémont. Part of Buchanan's success in the South was his, and the party platform's, support of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. One of the tactics used in the campaign involved lithographs of Wheatland being printed and circulated, primarily in the South, "as a polite way of informing the Southerners that the Democratic candidate, though from the North, had a 'plantation estate' and held a course of life similar to their own."
Read more about this topic: Wheatland (James Buchanan House)
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