George Davidson Buchanan

George Davidson Buchanan

George Davidson Buchanan (November 9, 1853, Oskaloosa, Iowa - November 13, 1920, Portland, Oregon,) had a long outspoken career as a minister after a brief time as a lawyer and capping off his last decade and alittle more as a Bahá'í and who traveled and ministered in three countries. He often gave talks for entertainment and education as well.

He started ministering in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1879 as a Presbyterian where he began to achieve a degree of regional prominence. But he decided to go with a missionary service to Australia in 1883 where he often engaged in advocacy for the poor and dispossessed to the point of being visible in regional and national debates about the use of black islanders in labor, of arguments of labor vs capital, of the challenge of banning alcohol, and of the well-to-do and the plight of the impoverished. In one exchange he debated with a capitalist who proclaimed the freedom to use his property, a coat, as he wished and Buchanan interjected that he was not free to smother himself with it. After working in several areas of Australia, and where his sons continued living though one died young, Buchanan and his wife went to South Africa in 1903. Independent sources are scant but there are claims that he earned or was given an honorary doctorate and undertook some travels in the period of intense colonialization of Africa to the point of reporting on widely reported atrocities then happening in the Congo, though he still often spoke of the advances of civilzation and the Christianization of aboriginal peoples. From there he came back to the United States circa 1906 on the West coast where he again took a stand against the treatment of Hispanic laborers before a relatively retiring period in Portland, Oregon, from 1909.

His activity in South Africa was recognized by later Bahá'í pioneers to the point of crediting him with propounding Bahá'í principles. It is known that during a ministerial trip to the United Kingdom for the Presbyterian Church he made a stop in Palestine for a tour of the Holy Land including a stop in Haifa/Acre area in the fall of 1892 during which he did learn something of the Bahá'ís. However it wasn't until he engaging with Thornton Chase circa 1910 in Portland during one of Chase' visits to the area that Buchanan's interest in the religion became concrete and during a second visit in 1911 Buchanan is considered to have joined the religion. He shifted from years of presentations for a church group to doing talks at Bahá'í meetings and contributed to the memorialization of Chase upon his death late in 1912. However Buchanan's own health was degenerating, reportedly including some affects from living in Africa, perhaps Malaria, and also there was an incident in Australia where he accidentally ingested some sulfuric acid. His rate of presentations wained especially near 1918 though some of the presentations in the period could still have been his, if unnamed. He had exchanged letters with `Abdu'l-Bahá and did so again in 1919, however he seems to have had a stroke circa 1918 and became a tenant in a convalescent/assisted living institution, the Patton Home, where he would live the remainder of his life. In the last few years his involvement with the Masons group increased. Under unclear circumstances, when he died, the Masons took charge of his funeral. It is unknown how big and organized the Bahá'ís in the area were or how well maintained relations between Buchanan and the Bahá'í community were but a biography with the limited information the Bahá'ís had was published in Star of the West the following March, 1921, some 5 months after he died.

In addition to his attention to the poor and marginalized, Buchanan also had an interest in prophecy which long continued and was more evident in the later stages of his life. In 1910 his US Census entry says his business occupation was "metaphysician".

Born and raised

Early days

There is fairly little know about the early days of George Davidson Buchanan and his family and ancestry though very generally it is said to be of Scottish descent. Some biographical articles do say he is the son of George Davidson Buchanan, a merchant, and was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, November 9, 1853, spent his later days as a youth in Virginia, who then went to college in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, and to practice law in Ohio.

Religious turn

The time and place are a bit unclear, and little is said of how it came to be, but he attended a meeting of the Society of Friends, (Quaker,) during which he had a religious experience and went on to attend that Meeting for a year before deciding to pursue a ministry of service at about the of age 24, circa 1876-7. Despite the circumstances of his experience, apparently simply because his family was Presbyterian, he went to what was then called the Western Theological Seminary in Allegany, Pennsylvania, later annexed into Pittsburgh, in 1876 where he graduated in 1879. It appears that during this phase he published a booklet Whiskey makes no bummers, nor makes the bummers bum in 1878. About the same time he married Martha Banks and their first son was born 1878-9 and another son George Arthur was born 1880.

Ministry

Buchanan accepted a placement as a minister to Baltimore, Maryland. Sometimes he was thought to be actually native to Baltimore after attending Princeton School of Divinity, also graduating in 1879. He started at the Aisquith St. Presbyterian Church in August 1879 and began to appear in local newspapers. He passed his church testing and his first sermon was an analysis of words of St. Paul by November following which he was ordained to serve the church. Serving in the church he ministered in several diverse instances from a suicide in April 1880, a visiting sermon at another church in June, and a marriage in October. In November the church vacated and renovated. Buchanan presided over the spring annual Sunday school collective meeting, and a funeral of a community's doctor, and other marriages. Collective meetings of Presbyterians included Buchanan as a delegate in later 1881. in July 1882 Buchanan offered the dedication sermon at a new church in Bel Air and was visible again in collective meetings of the Presbyterians in the Fall of 1882. He was described as “silver tongued” amidst his rising prominence in just these few years in Baltimore, but mere prominence was not his aim.

In January 1883 it was announced he had accepted a missionary service to go to Australia, news of which echoed a bit around the US, along with receptions and events. He applied for a passport the same time in Washington DC with the assistance of then US Secretary of State Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen. He departed via San Francisco for Sydney in February with Buchanan listed as a "special correspondent". Indeed he submitted a few articles to newspapers in the spring about the trip.

Australia

Melbourne

He arrived in Melbourne, in southeast Australia, in April, serving first at the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. as the beginning of a broadening ministry in Australia. In June he gave sermons in Woolloomooloo, an inner city section of Sydney to the northwest of Melbourne.

He visited in the US in January-March of 1884, arriving in New York on the City of Chester, and was noted assigned to Cairns Memorial Church of east Melbourne, and planning to sail back to Sydney in April. West Melbourne is more known as industrial and workmen while the east is known for the more well-to-do.

In 1885 he may have published a booklet entitled A prayer in Boston.

Perhaps out of the dichotomies of east and west Melbourne and his missionary zeal, he was described in 1887 as a unusual clergymen, who "like prophets and cynics was 'overburdened' with the iniquity of his surroundings, and looks vainly for a man to speak truth and do justice" going "beyond the limits of prudence" claiming "those who succeeded best in politics" were "socially and morally the most serious defaulters" which did not sit well with a reviewer even if there was "unrestricted praise" in the oration and closing of his service.

In 1888 he may have published The souvenir. For day schools and evening singing classes.

Brisbane

Unconventional

After what was then and later called a successful ministry at Cairns Church in which it was summed up "he has kept pace with the march of intellectual development… he allures within the radius of his eloquence large numbers of young people of both sexes… whilst the verdict of those of riper years is unanimous in his favour…" he took assignment in Brisbane, in the northeast of the country, in February, 1889. His inaugural sermon came in April. Chairs were added to the aisles and, immediately declared as unconventional, he featured the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel and the 22nd chapter of the Book of Revelation, and examined Revelation 21:7 in particular. In the words of a critic: "Mr. Buchanan's mode of reading the Holy Scriptures, it may at once be mentioned, is one which is not at all likely to please any cultured audience." Buchanan presented the voice of a river carrying the load of successful men who became slaves to the process of worldly success. He closed by discomforting images of heaven people might be consoling themselves with and thinking it good enough to simply be "in earnest". The inaugural sermon was covered separately noting he disdained "pompous and imposing" ceremony, "learned and popular ministry" as well as "orthodox creed" as any of the means of attracting people to Christianity - "none of them contained the true loadstone" - which was, as he was summarized in the newspaper, the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Social participant

In January 1890 Buchanan was in New Zealand giving a sermon in Dunedin, having arrived on the SS Wairarapa on a trip for his health. While there he took in a sight of the Sutherland Falls. In May Buchanan hosted American socialist economist Henry George giving several talks. In September Buchanan and the Rev Brentnall spoke out about a maritime shipping dispute which had reached the point of a general strike. The two became closely engaged in debate at a meeting held of employers and employees. At the meeting held there was an exchange that has rung over the years in the stories of Buchanan. Bruntnall recalls:

When the acute mind of Mr. Buchanan saw whither my illustration was leading me he adroitly tried, by a stroke of humour, to throw me off the track. My illustration was too heavily loaded with meaning to be so easily upset. I contended that a coat honestly paid for was the purchaser's own property in the same way that a steamship is the exclusive property of those who paid for its construction. As to the coat Mr. Buchanan, in irony that was bitter in spite of its jocularity, objected, 'But he has no right to smother me with it, if it is his.' I had not intimated such a right; to have done that would have been to make myself an indirect accessory to murder or manslaughter. Only in self-defense would such a course be in the least degree justifiable.…."

For Buchanan's part he says he observed that the meeting was not about resolving things between capital and labour but a trial of strength between the sides and also quoted his memory of the exchange:

Let it be known that Mr. Brentnall imperiously commanded the chairman to stand up. Thinking no doubt it was for some momentous purpose, he obeyed. Thereupon Mr. Brentnall began to exhibit the chairman's coat-tails and proceeded to sek(sic) such profound questions as 'Did you buy this coat?' 'Pay for it?' 'It is yours then?' 'You have a right to do as please with it?' All of which were meekly answered in the affirmative. The whole display was childish in the extreme - like two boys playing 'pitch and toss,' the chairman playing for 'heads' and Mr. Brentnall with 'tails'. All this aroused in me a sense of humour, besides which I thought at this point I detected another of those 'lame lies, that go limping round the world' as Mr Brooks would say, hence half jocularly and half in earnest, I declared the chairman 'had no right to smother me with his coat, if it was his.' Then followed commotion indescribable, after which Mr. Brentnall, with clenched fists, asked if 'this was the tyranny of the Church?' To an onlooker he appeared to be so white with rage that he hardly knew what he was doing or saying. He now, in his cool moments, declares that my sentiment was but the completion of his speech, and his own view in every particular. Whence then this display of temper? It can only be accounted for by the spirit of the man and not on account of his sentiments, and it is this spirit that is specially dangerous to the ocmuunity(sic) just now.…

Their dispute continued, if agreeing on the substance of the exchange if not the meaning. This exchange was remembered in 1905 and 1920.

Other ideas of Buchanan appear to have been briefly published in America about that time.

Prominent role

Buchanan took a trip from Brisbane to Melbourne in later December 1891, and returned in later January. Regional meetings included Buchanan signing group decisions. He led at least some sessions of such meetings. He preached based on a universal manifesto of the Brisbane ministers in April. On "the whole question of black labour (kanakas)… he was disgusted with the narrow-minded view…. One class ascribed it to strikes, and another to booms; the one to the attitude of capital, and the other to the attitude of labour. Neither side was absolutely correct. The whole matter was summed up in two words - financial intoxication.… Men who drank too much overnight had a 'head' on them the next morning, and falsely imagined that nothing would cure them but something else to drink" though he also looked to the Christianization of these native peoples who were disappearing. He also aided cultural festivals of the period. He spoke comparing working conditions in Australia and the in Britain speaking up on the regulation against abuse of gathering black islanders for work while at the same time underscoring the abuses of the system back in Britain where it could have been supposed people should have believed better: of "it is possible to so regulate this labour as to make it free from abuse, and a benefit to the white as well as to the black man" he addressed the comment ultimately that "… but some men will never be faithful to a promise unless the law compels them." He also gave more entertainment oriented talks.

Traveling

In later July 1892 he was granted a leave of absence for 9 months from the Church. He was to visit Britain and update the central Presbyterian Church on conditions in Australia. He intended to tour Great Britain and Ireland also for raising funds, and Scotland in particular. He left August 6 on the Wodonga. He had reached Inverness, Scotland, by late October, while news arrived back in Australia by December as reported in shipments of the Northern Chronicle and Inverness Courier. He also gave talks on "scenic wonders of New Zealand" and was still in Scotland in early December and planning on going to Ireland before hoping to return in February, was actually in Ireland in early January. Coverage was echoed from the Free Church of Scotland Monthly. He was set to arrive in late March but took a side trip to Palestine, expecting then to arrive in late April. Indeed he arrived at Sydney in mid-April, gave a sermon in Townsville, and in Brisbane a couple days later. He gave an extended interview reported in The Brisbane Courier. He had landed at Naples and traveled overland to London and then on to Scotland cities and historical and religious centers. He suffered a throat irritation and refrained from talks some three weeks. Two ministers had already been sponsored to come to Australia following his tour seeking assistance, plus a suggestion of two more as well as a similar number expected the next year. He had been on the Taroba until Port Said, Egypt, but was "disgusted" with the general visit with what he thought was the general "filth" and disrepair of the land. The cleanest most enjoyable visit was with a Bedoin. He left via Mount Carmel (aka Haifa) from which he returned to Port Said, catching the Merkara to return to Australia. It was later mentioned he had heard of Bahá'u'lláh from his visit near Haifa. His first sermon after return noted Christianity as a minority presence on the planet and even then hopelessly divided against itself needing Muslim guards to prevent mutual murder at festivals while the spiritual kingdom was advancing in good deeds not so obvious around every place even among those not carrying the name Christian: "The inner life of Christ is working in the world, and is destined to abolish war and bring in the universal peace and goodwill among men." the reporter summarized his words. He addressed the Presbyterian conference in early May. Financial support garnered did lead to funding a mission to the Kanaka. In mid-May he offered a specific talk on his experience in Palestine entitled "Bethlehem and Boaz". The next one was on Italy. There was a sermon on struggle increasing on sacred effort, a talk in Paraguay, and gave a talk for the Sunday School. Another talk on Palestine followed in later July. Then in another sermon he upheld the hope of social Christian implications of the New Australia movement but warning of trying to implement it with any trace of "selfishness and littleness and sordidness" and had perhaps already had strong signs of failure of a similar experience in Paraguay.

Christian socialism and higher criticism themes

As 1894 opened Buchanan was remembered in Baltimore. In March a sermon of Buchanan's quoted Henry George promoting a Christian sense of socialism. In May Buchanan was elected "Moderator" of the Presbyterian conference and had intended to give a talk on the "new theology" but delayed, until the next day and then it was reported in the papers with review it did not go over well according to some. It drew public response variously of whether or not it was heresy and carried on into June. Buchanan had mentioned it at least as far back as February. At the convention Buchanan was asked to return to the topic and afterwards a brief movement about if opposition should be voiced was allowed to die. He also spoke of the address at his own church's request in July. A followup inquiry was nevertheless held in November at which the committee was satisfied with his answers to questions posed.

Higher service and exchange ministry

Buchanan was elected president of the Ministers' Unions of Brisbane in March 1895 and gave a talk on "The New Pulpit" which was a commentary on an article by another proposing the idea, and also drew opposition.

In February 1896 Buchanan preached on the question of war and the prophetic era of peace with a focus between America and England, which was followed by memorial services for the Capsize of the ferry Pearl in Brisbane. In May Buchanan did a month's pulpit exchange with a church in Sydney area while also giving talks at the Burwood School of arts. He gave a keynote of the Brisbane celebration of the centenary of the death of Robert Burns, and followed with a talk on astrophotography for a general audience.

In 1897 there was a lecture on immigration/emigration and status with the government with echoes in Britain. He left for a month's pulpit exchange in Melbourne, and a biographical article and an artistic sketch of him was published in March. In April came news that Buchanan was going to resign from the Cairns ministry at least partly because two congregations were considering merger so both resigned, but also because on the one hand Buchanan felt he was interest in serving the people more than from the pulpit as needed by the Church which the other was at least partly over health. He withdrew the resignation in mid-May at the request of the congregation. Regardless, he accepted moving to the Sydney Chalmers Church by the end of May.

Sydney and Perth

By August Buchanan was with Chalmers Church in Sydney. In September Buchanan attended to a Methodist meeting, followed by the conference of Sunday School Teachers. Mrs. Buchanan contributed some singing at a Christmas concert. In 1898 a son was working with a regional weather station system. He may have published Fond memory leads us back again out of Boston, but he was still active in Australia. He offered a sermon on the US invading Cuba in 1898 observing the condition of the native people that he felt needed intervention. He was elected as chair of a conference on the unemployed in November, and gave a sermon on the social ministry for the unemployed after January 1899, but accepted serving at Goulburn's St. Andrew'a Church in May and gave a sermon at Trinity Church in Goulburn entitled "An American at home and abroad". In October came news he accidentally ingested some sulphuric acid. Buchanan was also noted in Freemason circles in 1899. In March 1900 he gave a more entertainment talk.

In 1901 Buchanan gave a 2 hour presentation partly on the Australian parallels with America, then another on India. With the news of the death of Queen Victoria Buchanan held services, and contributed to an interfaith service as well, and another memorial. A month later he gave a talk "Underground Jerusalem" at the Masonic Lodge. In February it was noted he had given up officiating at Churches and had embarked on a lecture tour. In March he was noted in Collie in far western Australia though it was noted he had a serious illness. His eldest son James Buchanan died between Derby and Northern Western Australia that summer. By September he was noted pastoring at the "Church of the People" in Subiaco, an inner city suburb of Perth. In October he participated in a debate entitled "Is Christian Socialism merely a lip term" with the president of Social Democratic Federation, which was itself probably related to the British political party. However a week later he had joined the Social Democratic Federation in a debate against the North-Western Literary Society (a pro business group). But in November Buchanan was back debating Social Democratic Federation for what was called Christian Socialism. Buchanan also attended and gave a more social entertaining talk for the Social Democrats. All still while pastoring at the Church. Indeed in December came news of a fair held in Subiaco to fundraise for a building for the Church.

In February 1902 a regional, perhaps national, debate was going on about the position of alcohol in the country via the State Liquor Reform League meetings. Buchanan contributed to the debate at a Perth meeting commenting about the cultural "allurements and bar maids", (hinting at prostitution occurring.) He appeared at a meeting in Midland Junction as well recognizing that the people had benefited from the taxation of alcohol and that changing to a prohibition system would require a sacrifice among the people.

In October he given a 'valedictorian social' in Sobiacu and gave a pleasing lecture to the audience. By November came news he had accepted going to serve in South Africa. That winter his second son was advancing in medical school in Sydney. A picture of Buchanan was published in May, 1903, in Melbourne, and was noted assisting a wedding in Brisbane in June.

South Africa

He was in South Africa, in what at the time was known as the Cape Colony under the prime minister Leander Starr Jameson in the era of the Scramble for Africa and he was drawing crowds at Durban before mid-January, 1903 and being called a "Doctor". It is unclear from where and when he obtained a doctorate and if it was honorary but many accounts mention it. He is not listed in University of Sydney, the South African College, or the University of Princeton, as has been mentioned.

What few references we have to his life in South Africa are mostly due to continued coverage from Australia. By May he was asked to minister at St. Andrews Church in Capetown, while still remembered in Brisbane. His remaining son was seeking medical degree(s) in Sydney.

It was reported he thought the wild animals of Africa were harmless when not provoked and also little valor was needed to shoot them, and that he traveled to Belgian Congo and wrote under pseudonym "XYZ" reporting on the atrocities in the Congo Free State.

Some time in this window, only roughly estimated, Buchanan had presented about the Faith, or at least principles that Bahá'ís recognized related to the religion, in South Africa and left for reasons of health. There is no description of how he had come by any substantive knowledge of the religion, if this is what happened. There is mention he had encountered it while on a his stay in Palestine and it was a favorable impression. Yet by the early 1900s there were limited sources for him to read. Though some early works had had a positive impression of the Bábí-Bahá'í development and teachings, various Presbyterian ministers operating under the Presbyterian Mission Agency had published unwelcoming reviews of the religion for some years. But Buchanan's reported positive engagement and public presentations on the religion or principals directly associated with it stand in strong contrast with that of his fellow ministers.

Buchanan applied for a passport with his wife from South Africa at the US Consulate in April 1904 then living in Cape Town intending to return to the US within 2 years.

One American newspaper mentions Buchanan leading a reception for an American diplomat in Capetown in January, 1905, which so far is the last mention of him there.

United States

There is some possibility he visited Australia for a wedding in March 1906, called Dr. and not Reverend, and spoke in Idaho in May 1908, on the topic of Palestine.

Buchanan appears consistently in Los Angeles in the fall of 1908 giving a variety of talks. In October Buchanan joined in a protest letter to the local attorney general about the mass arrest of Mexicans, (see the preludes of the Magonista rebellion of 1911.) The last appearance in 1908 was at a lecture on New Zealand for the local socialist group. His next visibility is late in 1909 in Portland, Oregon where again he gives a series of talks and serves as a minister in a small church or "Fellowship Circle" that carried on into the spring of 1910.

His profile of the life of Livingston was appreciated and published in March, followed by a few more talks in the same period. In early April, 1910 Thornton Chase was in Portland and his book on the Bahá'í Faith was reviewed in the local newspaper. Buchanan was commented on as locals wanting him to stay around and he was noted holding a "Truth Seekers Conference", a title not unlike the meetings Chase was known in when learning of the Faith. There are a few more public talks Buchanan is mentioned giving, but Chase mentions information perhaps passed on from Buchanan to the Chicago Bahá'ís by late April. They had met and were in correspondence. The April 1910 US Census had Buchanan as a lodger at the YMCA on Sixth Street, in Portland, Oregon, listing lecturer on metaphysics as his profession. He is listed as single.

Buchanan carried on giving talks and mixed with church meetings into the early summer.

In June 1910 Buchanan's talk on Ezekiel via an interpretation of flooding of the Dead Sea, his knowledge of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and `Abdu’l-Bahá, was noted by Bahá'ís of Portland and mentioned in Star of the West.

Buchanan's talks continued into mid-July.

Local news in Portland echoed Kheiralla's profile against the Bahá'ís in July. In September Chase passed info on from Buchanan to Bahá'ís of Portland area which also made its way back to Chicago. One other Bahá'í noted coming to the area was Josephine Locke in October. Buchanan continued his series of talks in October as well.

Thornton Chase was back in the Portland area in early May 1911. Around this time Buchanan is understood to have joined the Faith officially. This period for Buchanan appears to be one of unusual creativity. While he gave a talk more or less like normal, three books of more mythic subjects may have been published by him:

• Biyonde Cifrun (beyond Zero) (1911) which was briefly observed to support "men may dwell together in peace, regardless of differences in beliefs."
• The Torrent of Hell: A Composite of Four Sketches(1911).
• Gloria in excelsis; a communion (1878/1911)

In June talks continued as normal for Buchanan, and after a gap again in August,

Bahá'í Faith

In June 1912 there was a letter from Chase to Buchanan mentioning that `Abdu’l-Bahá was in the country, already news coverage of being with Kate Carew. It is unclear when, but `Abdu'l-Bahá sent an (unverified) Tablet to Chase meant for Buchanan saying, (probably in reference to Ezekiel 47 or Isaiah 9):

The joining of the River Jordan to the Most Great Sea is distinct and assured, but time is required. I ask God that you may learn all those verses in the Holy Book which refer to Haifa and Acca and quote them in your addresses.

Buchanan was then hosting about monthly Bahá'í meetings through the summer, and offered a tribute on the death of Chase quoting a letter from Chase possibly to himself saying "I cannot doubt that some of the 'invisible Light' has shown on my pathway and all that I can do is to try to let a little of that Light reflect on others. Moments of the inner joyousness that Light brings are worth years of valley living. To breathe once the air of the mountain top is to ever long for the mountains thereafter." After a break in September when that funeral was held he carried on about monthly meetings of Bahá'ís in Portland from October. Ali Kuli Khan was noted in town after being there a few days. Curiously, a talk entitled "Proofs of the Bahai (sic) Revelation from the Book of Daniel" appeared not noting a speaker in mid-November. A mystery about mentions of the prophecies of Daniel and the Bahá'í usages of it came circa 1914 - see below.

In December another couple meetings are announced, again without naming Buchanan or any specific speaker. In January, 1913, the marriage of his son was announced in Australia; and that his wife was still there.

In October 1913 Charles Mason Remey spoke in town. In March 1914 Corinne True came to Portland to speak. It has been noted that True is one of the references of the idea of the Bahá'í use of the prophecies of the Books of Daniel and Revelation in relation to the first World War which has been tracked to appear in print in September, 1914, citing `Abdu'l-Bahá when he was in Stanford University in 1912 in early October. Recall the November 1912 mention of the Book of Daniel in the meeting in Portland above. However another avenue of such knowledge appears to be Wellesley Tudor Pole who is reported to have learned of a link with the Book of Revelation's Armageddon and the World War from `Abdu'l-Bahá during a visit in 1910 and who then wrote of this knowledge to others in at least September 1914 reflecting back on it.

Whatever the truth of such associations of meetings and subjects, Buchanan reappears publicly giving talks in March 1914, after True's visit, and himself spoke on "The War and After" in April. Other talks continued a couple more times in April before he again goes silent in the news until later December which began a series of talks on peace and neutrality in the face of the growing World War going on in Europe.

The Bahá'ís themselves also gathered in the West with some news covered in and some coming to Portland giving talks from mid-April into May. Another came through in August. Buchanan himself reappears for a public talk in December among the Masons community speaking of what it was like in Rome. It would be another two years before another mention of Buchanan can be found in the newspapers again.

By then he was regularly appearing associated with the local Masons community, and arguing over politics in public. However he suffered a stroke shortly perhaps around now.

An inmate of the Patton Home

By May 1918 he was a patient living at the Patton Home though still speaking about about things. A Tablet to him from `Abdu'l-Bahá published in April 1919 in response to a letter in December confirmed to him that the gathering in Paris to settle the World War would not settle peace. Buchanan joined in the mass-signing of a letter hoping for the return of `Abdu'l-Bahá to America. A picture and biography of Buchanan was published locally in these last years describing the physical pains of his last days and the adventure of his life. It did not mention his affiliation as a Bahá'í, though mistakingly saying he had been stricken with the stroke in 1913 and a patient at the Patton Home since then. A followup appreciation of the biographical coverage was sent in a letter to the editor came in April and retelling various stories and achievements someone had been informed of.

The funeral was announced and arranged by the Portland Masonic Fraternity in mid-November, 1920. but without the knowledge of the Bahá'ís. A Bahá'í biography of him published in Star of the West.

Appreciations and posthumous works

After his death two articles were published in the Bahá'í-associated magazine Reality. The first was a two-part article on the Apostle Luke, and the next returned to his sympathies with the labor side of the economy. The editors summarized a biography of him in October 1921 noting that the publishers had a number of his manuscripts given to them though also maintaining he had not learned of the religion until coming to Portland.

He was called a great preacher in Sydney in 1925, and recalled for his service in Brisbane in 1926.

Books

While the author of these books is listed as George D. Buchanan, it is currently impossible to be sure this Buchanan did so. They do seem to fit the places, times, and subjects related to him in a general sense - New England early in his life, religious or metaphysical interest, and timed with some of the events of his life - 1878 and 1911 particularly.

• Whiskey makes no bummers, nor makes the bummers bum (1878)
• A prayer (1885)
• The souvenir. For day schools and evening singing classes (1888)
• Fond memory leads us back again(1898)
• Biyonde Cifrun (beyond Zero) (1911)
• The Torrent of Hell: A Composite of Four Sketches(1911).
• Gloria in excelsis; a communion (1878/1911)