Autobiography, when it exists, usually furnishes the most interesting and reliable information of at least the early life of any man. Among the papers of Mr. Buchanan, there remains a fragment of an autobiography, without date, written however, it is supposed, many years before his death. This sketch, for it is only a sketch, ends with the year 1816, when he was at the age of twenty-five. I shall quote from it, in connection with the events of this part of his life, adding such further elucidations of its text as the other materials within my reach enable me to give.
The following is the account which Mr. Buchanan gives of his birth and parentage:
“My father, James Buchanan, was a native of the county Donegal, in the kingdom of Ireland. His family was respectable; but their pecuniary circumstances were limited. He emigrated to the United States before the date of the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain; having sailed from —— in the brig Providence, bound for Philadelphia, in 1783. He was then in the twenty-second year of his age. Immediately after his arrival in Philadelphia, he proceeded to the house of his maternal uncle, Mr. Joshua Russel, in York county. After spending a short time there, he became an assistant in the store of Mr. John Tom, at Stony Batter, a country place at the foot of the North Mountain, then in Cumberland (now in Franklin county.)
“He commenced business for himself, at the same place, about the beginning of the year 1788; and on the 16th of April, in the same year, was married to Elizabeth Speer. My father was a man of practical judgment, and of great industry and perseverance. He had received a good English education, and had that kind of knowledge of mankind which prevented him from being ever deceived in his business. With these qualifications, with the facility of obtaining goods on credit at Baltimore at that early period, and with the advantages of his position, it being one of a very few spots where the people of the western counties came with pack horses loaded with wheat to purchase and carry home salt and other necessaries, his circumstances soon improved. He bought the Dunwoodie farm for £1500 in 1794, and had previously purchased the property on which he resided at the Cove Gap.