Henry, James B.

Born: 1833-03-01 Pennsylvania

Died: 1915-02-17 Florida

James B. Henry was a nephew of James Buchanan, an artist, civil servant, lawyer, and public servant. Raised by his famous uncle after his parents died, he attended the College of New Jersey (Princeton University). In 1850 he lived on the family homestead in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton in 1853. By 1856, he was a member of the Law Academy of Philadelphia. He also received a master of arts degree from Princeton that year. He served as Buchanan's secretary while the latter was minister to theUnited Kingdom, then, after Buchanan became president, Henry became the first congressionally-recognized presidential personal secretary, a position he held from 1856 to 1859. Afterward, he relocated to New York City and practiced law. From 1859 to 1861, he served as assistant United States district attorney for the district of New York, and from 1859 until well after the Civil War he also served as U.S. commissioner for the east district of New York. He died in Miami, Florida. By the time he died, he was in his third marriage and had fathered at least six children.

W. W. Price, "Secretaries to the Presidents," The Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine 30 (March 1901), 488-89; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Lancaster County, PA, 242; James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., "Buchanan, James," Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, (New York: D. Appleton, 1888), 1:432; U.S., School Catalogs, 1765-1935 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2012); “The Alumni,” Princeton Alumni Weekly 15 (March 1915), 612;Charlotte Daily Observer (NC), 20 February 1915, 4:4; Gravestone, Saint Anne's Cemetery, Annapolis, MD.