He was appointed Maine's Commissioner of Pharmacy in 1906, and was a delegate to the United States Pharmacopeial Convention in Washington, D.C., on several occasions.

[1] Bucknam entered the drug business as an apprentice with Leone R. Cook in Yarmouth's Upper Village.

[1] In March 1894, he began running his own store at today's 108 Main Street[3] in Yarmouth's Lower Falls.

His stock included toilet articles, patent medicines, paints, oils, wallpaper, leading brands of cigars and confectionary.

[4] After six years in business, and while also balancing a role as a Yarmouth town clerk,[5] in 1900 he purchased a store in Skowhegan, living with his wife, Gertrude, on Madison Avenue.