Our 15th president James Buchanan probably never campaigned as the green candidate, but there was a plumbing system in his former Lancaster home, Wheatland, that collected water from the roof. The system dates back to around 1840.
Tap water was a rare luxury in the early part of the 19th century and though the house is about 5 miles from the center of Lancaster, five miles of rutted roads was pretty far out into the county - no running water, no electricity. This didn't stop American ingenuity.

The system collected water from a pipe in the roof and filled a cistern in the attic. The huge cistern was constructed of ferris metal plates and rivets. Water fed by gravity was piped down to a shower, tub and bidet in a room beneath the cistern

The water wasn't heated, but a hot attic would transfer heat to the metal cistern and large bodies of water generally take a long time to cool after a hot day. A guess would make this water about 50 degrees warmer than anything dipped from a well after some good sunny days of an unventilated attic.

According to Patrick Clarke, executive director for The James Buchanan Foundation, not much is currently known about the system. Clarke is in the photos.

Although President Bush hasn't campaigned as a green president, his home in Crawford Texas has a 25,000-gallon underground cistern that collects rainwater and gray water where it's purified and used for irrigation. (greenmesh 3/2007)

Check out the automated rainwater collection system I built that collects rainwater from my roof and stores it under my deck. - Part I, Part II, Part III