Bios: MILTON I. BUCHANAN: Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
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Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lawrence Co transcribers.
Coordinated by Ed McClelland
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
An html version with search engine may be found at
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/lawrence/1897/
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MILTON I. BUCHANAN
[p. 365] is a wealthy farmer of Pulaski, Pa., and owner of the Shenango
Valley Stock Farm. He was born in Lawrence Count , Nov. 18, 1854. He was a
son of John P. and Elizabeth (Irvine) Buchanan, the former of Pulaski, and
the latter a native of Mercer Co.,Pa.
Robert Buchanan, the grandfather of the present scion of the Buchanan
family, was a native of Wilmington, and redeemed a farm from the wilderness
of its natural state, and brought it into such excellent condition that it
yielded bountifully under his management and labors. The farm not only
provided sustenance for the family, and all the necessaries and not a few of
the luxuries of life, but also produced with so lavish a hand, that Mr.
Buchanan was enabled to lay by a comfortable competency for his old age. The
wife of Robert Buchanan was Anna Piper, a daughter of John Piper of Mercer
County, and she bore two children, of whom Mary A. died at thirty years of
age, and John P., born Dec. 18 1822, who lived to be the father of Milton I.
Politically, Mr. Buchanan was a follower of Jefferson and an admirer of
Jeffersonian principles. During the War of 1812 he enlisted at Erie, Pa. as a
private. He and his family were Presbyterians.
John P. Buchanan, the only son of Robert, went to school in Pulaski
township, and in this day of cheap glass, and its wide and extended use, it
is quite difficult to imagine the lack of it, but it is a fact that the
school which he attended had greased paper for the glazing in the windows.
After he left school, he took up the pursuit of agriculture, and prospered as
had his father before him. Beside his farm, Mr. Buchanan operated a saw-mill.
He was a Democrat, and had his worth recognized by elections to several
different offices in the township, but he did not aspire to higher political
honors. Mr. Buchanan won the hand of Elizabeth Irvine in marriage; she was
born Sept. 13, 1823, a daughter of William Irvine, and their family numbered
six, of whom the eldest was Milton I., whose name appears as the title of
this personal history. Mary T., the next in order of birth, married Henry
Hartman of Neshannock Falls, and has a family of five childrenFrank, Vida,
Harry, Clarence, and Eva. Emma R. became the wife of William Lostetter of
Erie, Pa., and the mother of Edna, Clifford, and Helen. The other three
children of the parental family died in infancy. The family were consistent
members of the Presbyterian Church, and regular attendants at the services.
Mr. Buchanan was gathered to his fathers in 1888, at the age of sixty six.
Mrs. Buchanan preceded her husband across the River of Death to rejoin the
countless throng of those gone on before, dying Aug. 5, 1886.
Milton I. Buchanan, whose ancestral history has just been recorded, was
under the tutelage of village school-masters until he was a well-grown youth,
and then he went to work in earnest on the homestead, as he was the only son
that grew up, and he now has 259 acres of fine, arable land. He not only
keeps up the ordinary industries of the farm, but makes a specialty of
breeding standard stock, and it is all registered, being of such first-class
varieties as Short-horn cattle, Shropshire sheep, and Poland-China hogs. Mr.
Buchanan is just the man who has at his tongue's end an inexhaustible fund of
information, and he is able to answer any query from general rules down to
minute details in regard to the care of stock. He owns the celebrated Scarlet
Neck Bull, register number 117645, the dam of which was imported from Scotland.
On December 29, 1880, occurred Mr. Buchanan's union with Hannah F. Cox,
daughter of Charles Cox of Wilmington township, Lawrence County, and they
have a family of three children, John P., Nellie L., and Robert B. In
religious belief they incline to the Presbyterian doctrines, and are members
of that church. Mr. Buchanan has held his quota of the township offices and
is now school director. He is just attaining middle life, and already he is
able to look about on broad acres, well-filled barns, and see on every hand
evidences of his prosperity. He can give his children many advantages and
assure them a place in the community, where his antecedents are well-known,
and where the Buchanan name is highly esteemed. Mr. Buchanan's renown as a
skilled agriculturist and stock-breeder is not confined to his immediate
neighborhood, but extends throughout Lawrence County.