George Johnston

HERSOM, JOHNSTON, MILLER, NEWLON, SMITH, STEELE

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 10/19/2004 at 13:54:31

“History of Madison County Iowa and Its People”
Herman A. Mueller, Supervising Editor
Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915

George Johnston, a well-to-do retired farmer who is living in Winterset, is worthy of honor as a self-made man, having achieved success solely through his own efforts. He was born in Wayne county, Ohio, on the 13th of November, 1840, a son of William and Mary (Steele) Johnston, natives of the Keystone state. They were married in Ohio, where the father carried on agricultural pursuits, and both have passed to their reward. The paternal grandfather of our subject served in the War of 1812.

George Johnston is the fourth youngest in a family of eleven children and was compelled to go to work early, receiving no schooling after the age of thirteen years. A log cabin served as the school house and the seats were but slabs. After putting aside his text-books Mr. Johnston remained home, assisting his father until he was seventeen years of age, when he found work on a canal connecting Toledo, Ohio, and Fort Wayne, Indiana. After being so employed for one summer he returned home and was next in the employ of the Pittsburg & Fort Wayne Railroad, for which he got out cross ties. In the spring of 1864 he enlisted at Wooster, Ohio, in Company A, One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and for nine months was in the reserve of the Federal army, seeing but little fighting in that time.

After the close of the war Mr. Johnston went to Michigan and spent three months in the pine woods one hundred and sixty-five miles north of Grand Rapids and sixty-five miles from the camp in the heart of a heavily timbered region. In 1865 he came to Iowa and located at Pleasantville, Marion county, where he worked by the month for four years. At the end of that time he rented land in that county and subsequently farmed leased land in Warren county. In 1874 he removed to Madison county and purchased eighty acres of land near Douglas. He built an upright board shanty, fourteen by sixteen feet, which was the family home for three years and their seed wheat was kept in a box built under the bed. As prosperity rewarded his efforts he built a more commodious residence and made various other improvements upon his farm, which became in time a valuable and well developed property. He has always taken much interest in the development of the county along agricultural lines and a number of years ago was elected the president of the County Fair Association, which was then quite heavily in debt. He gave his time to the association gratuitously, using every cent of the funds received to discharge the obligations of the association and put it on its feet financially. Upon his retirement from the office its affairs were in a good condition. He still owns his farm, although he is now living retired in Winterset, enjoying a competence gained by much hard work and by carefully husbanding his resources.

Mr. Johnston was married in 1871 to Miss Mary Smith, a native of Ohio and a daughter of Thomas and Amelia (Miller) Smith, born respectively in Pennsylvania and Wayne county, Ohio. The family removed to Iowa when Mrs. Johnston was seven years of age and her father passed away in Warren county. Her mother died at the home of a daughter in Douglas township, Madison county. To Mr. and Mrs. Johnston have been born three children: Thomas, who died when five months old; Mary Alice, who taught school in Madison county for six years, and is now the wife of Perry Hersom, a ranchman of Columbus, Montana, by whom she has two children, Laura Mary and George Miles; and Martha Amelia, who attended the Iowa University at Iowa City and taught school two years. She is the wife of Frank Newlon, of Melcher, Marion county, Iowa, and they have two children, Robert J. and Clark F.

Mr. Johnston is a democrat and was township trustee for nine years, while for many years he held the office of school director. Thirty years ago he joined the Methodist church and has since taken an active interest in its work. He was on the building committee when the West Star church was built in Douglas township. In the fall of 1865, when the hostile spirit between the north and south was as strong as during the war, Mr. Johnston, wearing his Federal soldier's uniform, made a trip from Marion county to Missouri, which was strongly southern in its sympathies, with a load of flour and traded the same for a load of apples. He has manifested those sturdy virtues of self-reliance, independence and industry that have been so largely responsible for the upbuilding of the west and it is fitting that he should now enjoy the fruits of his former toil.

Madison Biographies maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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