Harriet Lane
First Lady of the United States
In office March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861
Preceded by	Jane Pierce
Succeeded by	Mary Todd Lincoln
Personal details
Born	(1830-05-09)May 9, 1830 Franklin County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 3, 1903(1903-07-03) (aged 73) Narragansett, Rhode Island, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Henry Elliott Johnston
Relations	James Buchanan (uncle)
Children	James Buchanan Johnston Henry Elliott Johnston
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston (May 9, 1830 – July 3, 1903), niece of lifelong bachelor United States President James Buchanan, acted as First Lady of the United States from 1857 to 1861. She was one of the few women to hold the position of First Lady while not being married to the President.

Early life[link]

Harriet Lane's family was from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest child of Elliott Tole Lane, a merchant, and Jane Ann Buchanan Lane. An orphan after the death of her father when she was 11 years old (her mother had died two years earlier), she requested that her favorite uncle, James Buchanan, be appointed her legal guardian. Buchanan, an unmarried Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, indulged his niece and her sister, enrolling them in boarding schools in Charleston, Virginia (later West Virginia), and then for two years at the Academy of the Visitation Convent in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. By this time, Buchanan was Secretary of State, and he introduced her to fashionable circles as he had promised.

In 1854 she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James's. 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, almost golden-colored hair.

First Lady of the United States[link]

The capital welcomed its new "Democratic Queen" to the White House in 1857. Harriet was a popular hostess during the four years of the Buchanan presidency. Women copied her hair and clothing styles (especially when she lowered the neckline on her inaugural gown by 2.5 inches), parents named their daughters for her, and a popular song ("Listen to the Mockingbird") was dedicated to her. While in the White House, she used her position to promote social causes, such as improving the living conditions of Native Americans in reservations. She also made a point of inviting artists and musicians to White House functions. For both her popularity and her advocacy work, she has been described as the first of the modern first ladies,^[1] and her popularity at the time is compared to that of Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s.^[1] The Presidential Yacht was named for her — the first of three ships to be named for her, one of which is still in service today.

Harriet Lane

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 returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Romance and Marriage[link]

From her teenage years, the popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous because, 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 lost her uncle, both her two young sons, and her husband.^[2]

Later Life and Death[link]

Thereafter she decided to live in Washington. 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".^[3]

In addition, she had dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became a renowned pediatric facility; the Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today, and the widely used manual for pediatric house officers, The Harriet Lane Handbook, bears her name.

Harriet wrote her will in 1895 and lived another eight years, during which the country’s general prosperity greatly increased the value of her estate. She added a codicil in 1899 directing that a school building be constructed on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral property and asked that it be called the Lane-Johnston Building “to the end that the family names of my husband and myself may be associated with the bequest made in loving memory of our sons.” A codicil of 1903 increased her gift by one third but said that only half the total was to be spent on the building. The remainder was “specially to provide for the free maintenance, education and training of choirboys, primarily those in service of the Cathedral.” This bequest founded the prestigious boys’ school that today is called St. Albans School, which opened in October 1909.^[4]

At Harriet Lane Johnston’s funeral, services were conducted by Bishop Satterlee and Canon DeVries of the Washington National Cathedral. She was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland, her grave marked with a Celtic Cross like the Peace Cross on the Close. In 1905, guests were summoned to see the cornerstone of the first St. Albans School building, laid for what the invitation referred to as “The Lane Johnston Choir School for Boys of the Washington Cathedral.”

Legacy[link]

The United States Coast Guard has had three Cutters named in her honor. The first was the USS Harriet Lane, commissioned into the United States Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the USCG) in 1857. This cutter was transferred to the United States Navy in 1861 because of the American Civil War and was captured by the Confederate Navy in 1863.

The second cutter named for Harriet Lane was the 125 foot USCGC Harriet Lane (WSC-141), commissioned in 1926 and decommissioned in 1946

The third cutter named for Harriet Lane is the USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903). The Cutter was commissioned in May 1984, and as of 2012^[update], is still in active service.

The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics continue to operate in countries throughout the world.

The pediatric medicine Harriet Lane Handbook series continues in print and online, with multiple titles. The original title (subtitled "A Manual for Pediatric House Officers") is in its 19th edition. Published by Mosby.

Founder: St. Albans School, Washington, DC

Her birthplace, the Lane House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.^[5]

References[link]

• Original text based on White House biography
• Margaret Brown Klapthor, The First Ladies, 1995, White House Historical Association, ISBN 0-912308-58-3
• Bergheim, Laura (1992). The Washington Historical Atlas: Who Did What When and Where in the Nation's Capital, Woodbine House, 219. ISBN 0-933149-42-5.
• John Updike, "Buchanan Dying", 1974, a play. (Ms. Johnston is a character in this play about President Buchanan).

v t e First Ladies of the United States Martha Washington Abigail Adams Martha Jefferson Randolph Dolley Madison Elizabeth Monroe Louisa Adams Emily Donelson Sarah Jackson Angelica Van Buren Anna Harrison Jane Harrison Letitia Tyler Priscilla Tyler Julia Tyler Sarah Polk Margaret Taylor Abigail Fillmore Jane Pierce Harriet Lane Mary Lincoln Eliza Johnson Julia Grant Lucy Hayes Lucretia Garfield Mary McElroy Rose Cleveland Frances Cleveland Caroline Harrison Mary Harrison Frances Cleveland Ida McKinley Edith Roosevelt Helen Taft Ellen Wilson Edith Wilson Florence Harding Grace Coolidge Lou Hoover Eleanor Roosevelt Bess Truman Mamie Eisenhower Jacqueline Kennedy Lady Bird Johnson Pat Nixon Betty Ford Rosalynn Carter Nancy Reagan Barbara Bush Hillary Clinton Laura Bush Michelle Obama

Jane Means Appleton Pierce
First Lady of the United States
In office March 4, 1853 – March 4, 1857
Preceded by	Abigail Fillmore
Succeeded by	Harriet Lane
Personal details
Born	(1806-03-12)March 12, 1806 Hampton, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died	December 2, 1863(1863-12-02) (aged 57) Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Franklin Pierce
Children	Franklin Pierce, Jr. Franklin "Frank" Robert Pierce Benjamin Pierce
Signature

Jane Means Appleton Pierce (March 12, 1806 – December 2, 1863), wife of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, was First Lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857.

Early life[link]

Born in Hampton, New Hampshire, the daughter of Reverend Jesse Appleton, a Congregationalist minister, and Elizabeth Means-Appleton, Jane was a petite, frail, shy, melancholy figure. After the death of her father, who had served as president of Bowdoin College not long before Franklin enrolled there, she at age 13 moved into the mansion of her wealthy maternal grandparents in Amherst.

Marriage[link]

How she met Pierce, a young lawyer with political ambitions, is unknown, but her brother-in-law Alpheus S. Packard was one of Pierce's instructors at Bowdoin. Franklin, aged almost 30, married Jane, aged 28, on November 19, 1834, at the home of the bride's maternal grandparents in Amherst, New Hampshire. Theirs was a small wedding, conducted by a brother-in-law of Jane, the Reverend Silas Aiken. The couple honeymooned six days at the boardinghouse of Sophia Southurt near Washington, D.C..

Pierce was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives by the time they married, and became a U.S. Senator in 1837. Mrs. Pierce hated life in Washington, D.C., and encouraged Pierce to resign his Senate seat and return to New Hampshire, which he did in 1842.

Service in the Mexican-American War brought Pierce the rank of Brigadier General and local fame as a hero. He returned home safely, and for four more years the Pierces lived quietly at Concord, New Hampshire, in the happiest period of their lives, where Jane watched her son Benjamin "Benny" grow up.

In 1852, the Democratic Party made Pierce their candidate for President. His wife fainted at the news. When Pierce took her to Newport for a respite, eleven-year-old Benny wrote to her: "I hope he won't be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either." But the President-elect convinced Jane that his office would be an asset for Benny's success in life.

The Pierces apparently had genuine affection for one another, but quarreled often and gradually drifted apart. She opposed Pierce's decision to run for president, for she much preferred private life. When her son Bennie was killed in a train accident before Pierce was sworn in as President, she believed God was displeased with her husband's political ambitions.^[1] After the deaths of her children, Mrs. Pierce was overcome with melancholia and distanced herself during her husband's presidency. She never recovered from the tragedy.

First Lady Jane Pierce with her las surviving son, Benjamin Pierce. The child died in 1853 in a train crash, a few months before his father was elected President.

For nearly two years, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House, spending her days writing maudlin letters to her dead son. She left the social chores to her aunt Abby Kent-Means and her close friend Varina Davis, wife of War Secretary Jefferson Davis. Mrs. Pierce made her first official appearance as First Lady at a New Year's Day reception in 1855 and thereafter served as White House hostess intermittently.

She died of tuberculosis at Andover, Massachusetts, on December 2, 1863. She was buried at Old North Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire, and her husband was also interred there beside her in 1869.

The Pierces had three children, all of whom died at young ages:

• Franklin Pierce, Jr. (February 2–5, 1836)
• Franklin "Frank" Robert Pierce (1839–1843) - died at the age of four from epidemic typhus.
• Benjamin Pierce (April 13, 1841-January 16, 1853) - Two months before Pierce's inauguration as president, a tragedy occurred as the family traveled by train from Andover, Massachusetts, to Concord, New Hampshire, where they had planned to attend the funeral of a family friend. Minutes after departure, their passenger car broke loose from the train and rolled down an embankment. The only fatality was Bennie Pierce.

References[link]

• Original text based on White House biography
• Jane Appleton Pierce

External links[link]

• Letter to Benjamin Pierce from Jane Pierce after Benjamin's death
• Painting of Jane Pierce
• the memory palace, history podcast episode: "The Saddest President."

v t e First Ladies of the United States Martha Washington Abigail Adams Martha Jefferson Randolph Dolley Madison Elizabeth Monroe Louisa Adams Emily Donelson Sarah Jackson Angelica Van Buren Anna Harrison Jane Harrison Letitia Tyler Priscilla Tyler Julia Tyler Sarah Polk Margaret Taylor Abigail Fillmore Jane Pierce Harriet Lane Mary Lincoln Eliza Johnson Julia Grant Lucy Hayes Lucretia Garfield Mary McElroy Rose Cleveland Frances Cleveland Caroline Harrison Mary Harrison Frances Cleveland Ida McKinley Edith Roosevelt Helen Taft Ellen Wilson Edith Wilson Florence Harding Grace Coolidge Lou Hoover Eleanor Roosevelt Bess Truman Mamie Eisenhower Jacqueline Kennedy Lady Bird Johnson Pat Nixon Betty Ford Rosalynn Carter Nancy Reagan Barbara Bush Hillary Clinton Laura Bush Michelle Obama

Keith Willis (born July 29, 1959) is a former American football defensive lineman in the National Football League.

Willis was undrafted out of Northeastern University in the 1982 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played for the Steelers, as well as the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins. During his career, Willis played in 139 games and record 59 quarterback sacks. He is currently the Defensive Line coach for the NC State Wolfpack.

External links[link]

• Boston College Eagles bio
• NC State Wolfpack bio

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