John Buchanan (d. by 16 August 1769), surveyor, probably moved to Virginia from Pennsylvania as a young man late in the 1730s and settled early the next decade in the portion of the Shenandoah Valley that is now Augusta County. He may have been the son of James Buchanan and Jane Sayers Buchanan. Records of his early life are sparse, and at least two men named John Buchanan lived in the same part of Virginia and engaged in similar pursuits, which has resulted in confusion about their lives and careers.
Buchanan was probably the "John Buchanan, Gent.," who acquired land in Beverley Manor in 1738. He soon became prominent and was appointed a justice of the peace for the Augusta district of Orange County in November 1741. On 24 June 1742 Buchanan qualified as a captain of militia. He was present at Balcony Falls, near modern-day Glasgow, in Rockbridge County, on 19 December 1742 when militiamen clashed with Iroquois warriors. According to contemporary accounts, for forty-five minutes Buchanan led his small contingent against superior numbers and finally forced the Iroquois to retreat. As a result of this action, in September 1743 he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Orange County militia.
Buchanan worked for James Patton, a land speculator who helped sponsor large-scale immigration to western Virginia. Buchanan explored unsettled land southwest of the settled portion of Augusta County. After receiving his report on 1 May 1743, Patton petitioned the governor's Council for a grant of 200,000 acres fifty miles west of the headwaters of the Roanoke River. On 30 March 1745 the Orange County Court instructed Patton and Buchanan to survey a public road from Frederick County south to Wood's River (now the New River), near the present-day city of Radford. What had once been a trail from Pennsylvania to the Virginia frontier became a major route of migration to western Virginia and into the areas that became Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio.
On 26 April 1745 Patton was awarded 100,000 acres in the watershed of the New, Holston, and Clinch Rivers, after which he organized the Wood's River Land Company and appointed Buchanan surveyor. Years later litigants disputing some land titles based on Buchanan's surveys argued that he had not been licensed either as a surveyor by the College of William and Mary or as a deputy to the county surveyor, as the law required. In October 1745 Buchanan made an inspection tour of the Patton grant, and his journal records that he helped John Peter Salley prepare an account of the latter's search for a route to the Mississippi River.
Buchanan was a founding member of the Augusta County Court in 1745. On 10 October 1746 he became agent for the Wood's River Land Company. In April 1748 Buchanan accompanied Patton and Thomas Walker on an expedition of exploration that took them west as far as Cumberland Gap. Buchanan married Margaret Patton, daughter of his patron and partner, in June 1749. They had at least three sons and four daughters. The following year Buchanan moved to Anchor and Hope, a plantation of approximately 1,700 acres on Reed Creek near Max Meadows, where he continued to act as an agent for Patton.
In November 1752 Buchanan was appointed a colonel of militia. His importance in the migration to the western borders of settled Virginia became clear in 1754 when reports circulated that some Indians and their French allies had placed a bounty on his and other leading Englishmen's lives. The French and Indian War soon reached Buchanan's neighborhood, and a party of Shawnee killed Patton on 30 or 31 July 1755 at Draper's Meadows. Buchanan sent militiamen in pursuit but failed to apprehend any of the perpetrators, and his pleas for help to Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie produced no assistance. Buchanan succeeded Patton as commander of the Augusta County militia, and the following spring he withdrew from his exposed residence at Max Meadows to Cherry Tree Bottom, Patton's plantation on the James River.
On 27 July 1756 Buchanan presided over a council of war at the Augusta County courthouse to plan construction of a chain of forts in the Allegheny Mountains. George Washington, commander of Virginia's armed forces during that portion of the French and Indian War, visited Cherry Tree Bottom and was briefed by Buchanan on recent conflicts with the Indians. Buchanan accompanied Washington part of the way back to his headquarters in Winchester, inspecting the small defensive forts as they went. In 1757 Buchanan erected Fort Fauquier near the site in Botetourt County of the modern town of Buchanan, which is named for him. He became county lieutenant, the commanding officer of the entire county militia, on 30 September 1758 and commanded the militia at Fort Fauquier in 1758 and 1759.
Buchanan was sheriff of Augusta County in 1761–1762. After the end of the war the British government issued the so-called Proclamation of 1763 barring colonial settlement of Indian lands west of the Allegheny Mountains. Buchanan considered but decided against traveling to London to seek title for his western investments. Reportedly during a journey to his property at Max Meadows, John Buchanan died on an unrecorded date at the residence of William Preston. He was already sick on 25 June 1769 when he wrote his will, which was proved at a meeting of the Augusta County Court on 16 August 1769.
Sources Consulted:
Mary B. Kegley and Frederick B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters (1980–1995), esp. 1:87, 200–202; Patricia Givens Johnson, James Patton and the Appalachian Colonists (1983) and The New River Early Settlement (1983); numerous references and letters in Preston and Virginia Papers, Draper Manuscripts, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wis., series 1QQ–2QQ, esp. Oct. 1745 journal, 1QQ38–56; David John Mays, ed., Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734–1803 (1967), 1:374–375; Robert A. Brock, ed., Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1751–1758 (1883–1884), 1:267–268, 2:154–155, 199, 488–490, 492–493, 537, 566, 569, 719; W. W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series (1983–1995), 3:431–434, 4:1, 13, 30; will and estate inventories in Augusta Co. Will Book, 4:389–391, 490–492, 12:375–380.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Donald W. Gunter.
How to cite this page:
Donald W. Gunter, "John Buchanan (d. 1769)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2001 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Buchanan_John_d-1769, accessed [today's date]).
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