Background
John Buchanan was born in 1772 and was the son of Thomas Buchanan, an English emigrant who settled in Maryland about 1760 and married Mary Cook, a daughter of William and Eliza (Tilghman) Cook.
John Buchanan was born in 1772 and was the son of Thomas Buchanan, an English emigrant who settled in Maryland about 1760 and married Mary Cook, a daughter of William and Eliza (Tilghman) Cook.
Death having claimed both parents while he was yet a child, John was sent to Charlotte Hall Academy in St. Marys County, and later to the office of Judge Robert White of Winchester, Virginia, to study law.
Buchanan remained at Winchester, Virginia but a short time when he found an opportunity to complete his studies with John Thompson Mason of Hagerstown, Maryland. He served in the lower house of the state legislature, 1797-99, and in 1806 received the appointment as chief judge of the fifth judicial district, by virtue of which he became an associate justice of the Maryland court of appeals.
Upon the resignation of Judge J. T. Chase he became chief justice of the appellate court, July 27, 1824. He served in that capacity in every session of the court until his death, except for a brief period in 1837 when he was sent to England as one of the commissioners on the part of Maryland to negotiate the sale in London of $8, 000, 000 of state-secured railroad and canal stocks.
The commissioners failed in England, but they did succeed in getting the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company to agree, conditionally, to take $6, 000, 000 of the state stock before they set out for Europe--an arrangement that resulted in heavy losses to both companies.
Buchanan has been called one of Maryland's greatest jurists. His diction was polished and unlabored; he was not given to copious citations of authorities; he sought his decisions in an analysis of the social and economic factors which produced the cause rather than in a compilation of obsolete legal precedents. Among Buchanan's most important decisions were those in the cases of Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company vs. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company (4 Gill and Johnson), argued by Daniel Webster and Reverdy Johnson, determining the railroad's privileges conferred by its charter; and Calvert vs. Davis (5 Gill and Johnson), a leading case in Maryland on testamentary capacity.
On October 4, 1808 he was married to Sophia, daughter of Judge Eli Williams. They had one son, Thomas Eli Buchanan. He resided at an estate named "Woodland", near Williamsport, Maryland, and died there.
