Harriet Lane

[L Verge]

Has anyone ever written a book on Harriet Lane? Personally, I had never thought of her as anything but the niece of Buchanan, who served as his First Lady.

With five days to go before the Surratt Conference opens next Friday -- and with everything under control (I hope) -- I decided to pick up DEAD PRESIDENTS again and try to finish it. In a section on Buchanan, the author has a short, but interesting biography on Miss Lane.

I knew that her uncle had raised her when her parents died and gave her a good education, exposing her to cultural events, politics, and high society. She repaid him by being a very good and well-liked White House hostess. Even Queen Victoria referred to her as "dear Miss Lane." In political circles, she was called the Democratic Queen. (Wonder how she got along with the American Queen, Kate Chase?)

After her uncle left office, she did marry Henry Elliott Johnston in 1866. He was a Baltimore banker, and it was a tragic marriage. The couple had two sons, James Buchanan Johnston and Henry Elliott Johnston, Jr. Within one three-year period (1881-1884), both teen-aged sons died of rheumatic fever and her husband of pneumonia following surgery.

Harriet went into retirement for a few years, but then bounced back. She had inherited a sizable estate from both her uncle and her husband and decided to become a philanthropist. In honor of her sons, she created a number of medical facilities to provide care for poor children. In her will, she bequeathed $100,000 to establish the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore. It was later renamed the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, and its work discovered a cure for rheumatic fever. The facility still publishes a guide to pediatric diagnosis and treatment titled The Harriet Lane Handbook.

Knowing that her uncle had been an unpopular President, she also provided for two large memorial monuments to him. She was smart enough to provide the money (another $100,000) for the project - knowing that there would be an argument about public funds being used. She was also smart enough to include the provision that the money had to be spent within 15 years.

The first project was a stone pyramid, 38-feet-high, built on land where Buchanan had been born. Getting the other one placed in Washington, DC, was a tad more difficult. Only George Washington had a monument in DC at that time. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (a political dynasty that we hear nothing about nowadays) was adamant that Buchanan did not deserve a monument. In the end, however, the politicians were convinced that free money was good money; and President Wilson signed the legislation six days before Harriet's deadline. It opened to the public in 1930, with Herbert Hoover giving the dedicatory speech.

Very few people even know where the memorial is in DC. It overlooks Meridian Hill Park (more recently known as Malcolm X Park). Until urban decay in the 1960s, Meridian Hill was a lovely, upper-crust neighborhood with its own history in DC Society. It is now getting a rebirth.

Buchanan's statue is a full-sized one, showing the impeccably dressed President sitting and admiring the Constitution. I wonder how many people who pass by it today even know the turmoil of his administration - one that included the internal turmoil of our Union? I'm of the opinion that no President in the 1850s could have solved our nation's problems without bloodshed. Only in that sentiment do I agree with John Brown...

One other thing that I learned from this chapter in DEAD PRESIDENTS is that the famous author, John Updike wrote a "play designed to be read" about Buchanan. He called it "Buchanan Dying," and set it at the man's deathbed with flashbacks to his life. Some think that Updike's inspiration for this was Richard Nixon because it was published in 1974, at the time of Watergate.

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It just dawned on me that I did not continue with the rest of Harriet's life. She continued to be heavily involved in philanthropic projects ranging from acquiring a sizable art collection while traveling abroad - the acquisition of which laid the groundwork for our National Gallery of Art - to supporting the construction of our National Cathedral, where she appropriated funds for the Lane-Johnston Building and the schooling of the Cathedral's famous boys' choir.

From 1892 on, her primary residence was at I and 17th Streets in Washington, with summers spent first in Bar Harbor, Maine, and then in Newport, Rhode Island. Harriet died on July 3, 1903, and her burial services were held at the National Cathedral with Bishop Satterlee conducting. She is buried in Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery with her grave marked by a Celtic Cross, like the Peace Cross at her beloved Cathedral.

The next best thing to a full book on Harriet Lane Johnston is the First Ladies Bio page online. http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/f...ography=16