Buchanan is a town in Botetourt County, and located in the greater Roanoke metropolitan statistical area.
The community was named for John Buchanan, surveyor and son-in-law of Colonel James Patton who came from the north of Ireland in 1736 and one of the first and most influential settlers in the Valley of Virginia.
In 1745 Colonel Patton secured a grant from the Governor and Council of Virginia, for one hundred and twenty thousand acres of land west of the Blue Ridge, and he and son-in-law John Buchanan, who was also deputy surveryor for Augusta County, located lands on the James River, and founded and named Buchanan and Pattonsburg villages that were built on opposite sides of the James River now in Botetourt County.
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