Harriet Lane Johnston signed B&O Stock Certificate-1869 First Lady of Pres. James Buchanans Administration Start Price USD 229.00 Current Price USD 229.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Thursday, November 20, 2008 End Time Sunday, November 30, 2008 Location FLORIDA See more about 'Harriet Lane Johnston signed B&O Stock Certificate-1869' Description                                                                          A rare signature by one of America's most popular First Ladies who made a significant impact on Washington and the nation, this Harriet Lane Johnston  signed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stock certificate No. 34222  was issued November 5, 1869 for 50 shares. The certificate was printed by Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co. Punch cancellations affect the officers signatures on the front and there is some bleed through from the signatures on the back of the certificate with  slight holes from the ink. Harriet Lane Johnston’s signature is bold and entirely legible on the back of the certificate. Certificate has been previously folded   horizontally at the center but is other than noted in very fine condition given its 139 years of age. Harriet Lane Johnston is listed on the White House web site among First Ladies of the United States and her biography follows:                                  First Ladies of the United States                                                     Harriet Lane Johnston (1830-1903) When James Buchanan, a life long bachelor, became the 15th President of the United States in 1857, he called upon his niece Harriet Lane to act as White House hostess. In addition to being known for her liveliness and charm, she used her position to promote social causes, such as improving the living conditions of Native Americans on reservations. She also made a point of inviting artists and musicians to White House functions. For both her popularity and her advocacy work, she has been described as the first of the modern First Ladies. Harriet Rebecca Lane was born on May 9, 1830, in Mercersburg, Pa. An orphan after the death of her father—a prosperous merchant—when she was 11 years old (her mother had died two years earlier), she requested that her favorite uncle, James Buchanan, be appointed her legal guardian. Buchanan, an unmarried Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, indulged his niece and her sister, enrolling them in boarding schools in Charleston, Va. (later West Virginia), and then at the Academy of the Visitation Convent in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. When Buchanan was appointed minister to Great Britain in 1853, Lane accompanied him to London and received considerable attention for her beauty and vivaciousness. Queen Victoria gave her the rank of ambassador's wife. Although there were reports of proposals from various suitors, Lane returned to the United States unmarried in 1855. During the four years of the Buchanan presidency, Lane was an enthusiastic hostess hailed by the press as the Democratic Queen. Women copied her hair and clothing styles, parents named their daughters for her, and a popular song ( "Listen to the Mockingbird" ) was dedicated to her. As regional tensions increased in the years leading up to the American Civil War, she worked out seating arrangements for her weekly formal dinner parties with special care to keep political foes apart. By the end of Buchanan's term, the crisis had worsened—seven states had seceded by the time he left office in 1861—and Buchanan and Lane happily returned to Pennsylvania. With her uncle's approval, she married Baltimore banker Henry Elliott Johnston on Jan. 11, 1866. Her personal life, however, was marred by the deaths of her two children while they were still in their teens and by her husband's death a short time later. She left Wheatland, the Pennsylvania estate she had inherited from her uncle, and moved back to Washington, among friends where she became involved in projects to care for needy children and to increase appreciation for the fine arts. Lane died of cancer on July 3, 1903, in Narragansett Pier, R.I., and was buried in the Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Md. She bequeathed her art collection to help found the National Collection of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution . The donation, accepted after her death in 1903 inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her "First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts." She also funded the St. Albans school in Washington, D C  and willed a large sum to endow a facility for children at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today.       Place a Bid!