Unique among First Ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only President
who never married: James Buchanan, her favorite uncle and her guardian after she
was orphaned at the age of eleven. And of all the ladies of the White House, few
achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young
woman in her twenties.

In the rich farming country of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, her family had
prospered as merchants. Her uncle supervised her sound education in private
school, completed by two years at the Visitation Convent in Georgetown. By this
time, "Nunc" was Secretary of State, and he introduced her to fashionable
circles as he had promised, "in the best manner." In 1854 she joined him in
London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James. Queen Victoria gave
"dear Miss Lane" the rank of ambassador's wife; admiring suitors gave her the
fame of a beauty.

In appearance "Hal" Lane was of medium height, with masses of light hair almost
golden. In manner she enlivened social gatherings with a captivating mixture of
spontaneity and poise.

After the sadness of the Pierce administration, the capital eagerly welcomed
its new "Democratic Queen" in 1857. Harriet Lane filled the White House with
gaiety and flowers, and guided its social life with enthusiasm and discretion,
winning national popularity.

As sectional tensions increased, she worked out seating arrangements for her
weekly formal dinner parties with special care, to give dignitaries their proper
precedence and still keep political foes apart. Her tact did not falter, but her
task became impossible--as did her uncle's. Seven states had seceded by the time
Buchanan retired from office and thankfully returned with his niece to his
spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

From her teenage years, the popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous
beaux, calling them "pleasant but dreadfully troublesome." Buchanan often warned
her against "rushing precipitately into matrimonial connexions," and she waited
until she was almost 36 to marry. She chose, with her uncle's approval, Henry
Elliott Johnston, a Baltimore banker. Within the next 18 years she faced one
sorrow after another: the loss of her uncle, her two fine young sons, and her
husband.

Thereafter she decided to live in Washington, among friends made during years
of happiness. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European
works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903,
it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her "First Lady
of the National Collection of Fine Arts." In addition, she had dedicated a
generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital
in Baltimore. It became an outstanding pediatric facility, and its national
reputation is a fitting memorial to the young lady who presided at the White
House with such dignity and charm. The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve
thousands of children today.