James N. Buchanan, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of James N. Buchanan
REV. JAMES N. BUCHANAN.
In looking after the spiritual welfare of his fellow-citizens, Rev. Buchanan gets very near to his people, and has ever sought to develop the highest type of social life of the church. He has made himself a personal friend of each member of his flock, sympathizing with them in trouble and rejoicing with them in their gladness; and as pastor of the United Presbyterian Church at Hebron and Leroy, Indiana, he has shown himself to be a well educated gentleman, possessing a fine and original mind, and in discourse is fluent, eloquent and forcible. He is a native of the Buckeye State, born in Licking County, December 10, 1824, a son of Thomas and Nancy (Reed) Buchanan, who were born in the Keystone State. They removed to Hebron, Indiana, in 1854, and died at the home of the subject of this sketch, the former in 1855 and the latter in 1857. Thomas Buchanan was a farmer by occupation and of quiet and unassuming demeanor and an earnest and devout member of the United Presbyterian Church. In the public schools of Ohio, Rev. Buchanan received his early scholastic training, and as he was at an early day thrown upon his own resources he at once resorted to the occupation of school teaching as a means of livelihood, and after acquiring sufficient means he entered Muskingum College, from which he graduated in the fall of 1848. He then entered the United Presbyterian Theological Seminary and completed his course in 1851. In 1843 he was married to Miss Rosanna S. Alexander, of New Concord, Ohio, who proved to him a helpmate in every sense of the word, and was a kind and devoted wife and an able assistant to her husband in his ministerial labors. She was called from this life in 1869, having borne her husband nine children, eight of whom survive: William T., a prominent farmer and fine stock-raiser of Eagle Creek Township, Lake County, Indiana; Nancy J., the wife of H. P. Woods, is a resident of Hebron; Oscar R. is the manager of the home farm; Mary O. has been principal of one of the ward schools in Des Moines, Iowa, for the past four years, and has taught continuously and with the best success for the past sixteen years; Emma A. is the wife of G. M. Death, a prominent business man of Lowell, Indiana; Samuel A. resides in Hebron, and is a painter and decorator by trade; Carrie M. was educated in the public schools of Hebron, and graduated from the Western Seminary, of Oxford, Ohio, in 1889. She became imbued with the missionary spirit, went to Wyoming and engaged in teaching in a Government Indian school, where she remained for some time. She then went to Des Moines and acted as assistant principal of a ward school in that city for two years, at the end of which time she was appointed as a missionary to Egypt by the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Brethren church, and since November, 1893, has been located at Cairo, where she is actively laboring for the Master; James Hervey, the youngest son, resides in Washington County, Iowa. The eldest child, Elizabeth Agnes, died in infancy. After graduating at Oxford, Rev. Buchanan came to Hebron, Indiana, in 1851, and assumed the pastorate of the United Presbyterian church of that place. The membership of the church then consisted of only forty people, and, with the membership of the church at Leroy, now numbers 125 souls. In 1870, Mrs. Mary A. (Dilly) McCracken became the wife of Rev. Buchanan, and to them eight children have been born, five of whom survive; Martha A., who is a student at the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford, Ohio, and is preparing herself for the work of teaching; R. Myrtle, who, owing to ill health, is out of school; Anna G., who graduated from the Hebron public schools in the class of 1893, and is now fitting herself for teaching; Jay Turner is a student in the Hebron High School; also E. Ruth. Politically, Rev. Buchanan is a Republican, and as a servant in the vineyard of his Master he has wielded a wide influence, and his friends are legion.
Source: Goodspeed Brothers. 1894. Pictorial and Biographical Record of La Porte, Porter, Lake and Starke Counties, Indiana. Chicago, Illinois: Goodspeed Brothers. 569 p.
Page(s) in Source: 72-73
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook