THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN One hundred years ago, today, in the stately mansion just a stone's throw from the building where we are gathered, James Buchanan clad in a dressing gown and slippers, sat alone in his study trying to calm his nerves and to itemize a list of incidentals

. Buchanan experienced the great hurt of his life when his romance with Miss Ann Caroline Coleman faded, possibly as the result of tea table conversations, conversations during which tongues were not always kind in what they spoke. For a while Mr. Buchanan considered retiring, as he might have done with an

characteristic which appears to have stuck with him throughout his life. He jumped into things with both feet. He was only twenty years old and writing his first letter to the then U. S. Senator James Buchanan. But that did not stop Forney from recommending another young man for a position. The letter also would

Pennsylvania, and three of his descendants resided their entire lives there. A definite picture of Thackara's ancestry, and early life, is given in the valuable "Diary of William Wood Thackara, 1791-1816," in the Historical Society of Penn- sylvania.3 �James Thackara was the first of five children of William