Many Swiss and Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania staying in the heartland and planting native wheat and corn for sustenance in the 17th century. They escaped religious persecution in Europe for their Anabaptist beliefs. Pennsylvania became known for thrifty farmers, German beer, and accurate clocks. By the 18th century, there were coaches travelling to Wilmington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
Capitalizing on its rich German history, the region developed Amish tourism and built Dutch Wonderland in the 1960s. Dutch was a blanket Anglo term used to describe all people of German ancestry in New England, and not an adulteration of Deutsch.
Former president James Buchanan’s house is on the museum grounds and there is a guided tour every hour on the hour. He was a congressman, senator, twice ambassador and the last president before the Civil War and lost to Abraham Lincoln.
Buchanan bought Wheatland while he was still secretary of state so he could live with his orphaned nephew and niece. He was ambassador to the U.K. as the country plunged into pre-Civil War turmoil, so he was a prime candidate for both the north and the south as he never had to vote on domestic matters. His niece, Harriet, was 19 when he became president and was referred to as the First Lady for the first time in American history, defined as the woman in the White House who threw all the dinner parties.
He wrote his memoirs in 1861 when he retired to Lancaster to defend his position on keeping slavery, but history did not vindicate him. He supported statehood for Kansas even though it had an illegal constitution that allowed slavery thinking that if it were no longer a territory it would take the issue of slavery outside of general politics. His interference with court cases involving slavery and failure to stop six states from seceding led to the war.
Afterwards, Pennsylvania became one of the first states to free slaves, but those already slaves remained slaves for life and those born into slavery remained so until age 28. His presidency was just a failure of leadership.
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