Robert Harrison Johnston (1831-1914)

JOHNSTON, SHEPLER, PAINE

Posted By: Larry Nelson (email)
Date: 11/4/2001 at 06:09:34

Robert H. Johnston, the youngest child of Samuel Johnston and Prudence Hill, was a young man of 23 in the fall of 1854, when he came to Iowa with his mother. His education had been acquired in the Keystone State and there he had learned the shoemaker's trade. Serving his apprenticeship near Pittsburgh and following that occupation for about seven years in Pennsylvania and also in Iowa. After his arrival in this state, he spent one year in Scott County and in the fall of 1855, removed to Van Buren County, where he remained until 1877. In the latter year he came to his present place of residence, which remained his home for 34 years. His home farm, which was located in Sec. 36, Liberty Township, about two miles north of Birmingham, on the Van Buren county line. The farm consists of 80 acres and was a well improved property, containing all the accessories necessary to equip a model farm. Indeed it was one of the most valuable and desirable places in Liberty Township and its excellent condition was seen as the result of a life characterized by earnest endeavor, by unfaltering energy and well directed effort. It was a natural consequence that as the years passed, Mr. Johnston should prosper in his agricultural undertaking and never was success more worthily won, nor more richly deserved.

The entire attention of Mr. Johnston, however, was not concentrated in only one avenue, for during 19 years he had served as a director of the Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In like manner, business interests have not been permitted to exclude activity in other directions. He had an interesting military record covering 3 years service in the Civil War as a soldier in the Union Army. He enlist from Van Buren county on August 6, 1862 being assigned to Company I. Nineteenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and remained with that command until honorably discharged on August 6, 1865, having in the meantime been detailed as bass drummer of the regiment. He has since maintained pleasant connection with his old army comrades through his membership in Newell Post, GAR., at Birmingham. He was a demitted mason, while his religious faith was that of the Presbyterian church, holding membership relations with that denomination at Birmingham. In politics he has ever given stalwart support to the Republican Party and has been called to service by his fellow citizens, filling the office of township trustee for a number of years. He also served as school director. Being a warm advocate of the cause of education, and he was equally staunch in a warm advocacy of material and moral progress, doing all in his power to further the interest of the community in which he lived.

It was in 1852 that Mr. Johnston was united in marriage to Hannah Shepler, who was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. on the 21st of February, 1828, a daughter of Peter and Mary (Paine) Shepler, both natives of the Keystone State, where their last day's were spent. The Johnston household was blessed with six children, as follows: William, a farmer of Van Buren County, who resided near Birmingham; Margaret, who married Jackson Kirkhart of Cantril, Van Buren County, Mary, at home; Maria, who married Albert Parker of Derby, Lucas County; Reuben, a resident of Liberty Township; and Carrie. who passed away at the age of nine years. Mr. And Mrs. Johnston celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of their wedding nine years ago and they confidently expect to celebrate their sixtieth anniversary' in 1912. Both have long since phased the palmist’s allotted span of three score years and ten and they could look back upon a past which has been crowned with successful achievement and characterized by a development of high ideals.

In bringing this history down to the present date, we find that Mrs. Robert H. Johnston passed away on February 22, 1912, and Mr. Robert H. Johnston passed away on August 13, 1914. Robert H. and Hannah were the parents of six children. namely:

William A. Johnston, born July 27.1853,
Margaret C. Johnston born May 18, I 856,
Maria A Johnston. born March 20.1862,
Mary J. Johnston born February 11, 1859,
Carrie E. Johnston, born December 24, 1869,
Reuben S. Johnston born June 25, 1866

We now continue on with Reuben S. Johnston, (grandfather of Richard R. Johnston). On March 1 1888, he married Mary E. McKee. They were the parents of two children.

Grant Harrison born August 9, 1888,

Ralph McKinley born June 30, 1896,

Mary E. (McKee) Johnston passed away on October 7, 1907.

Reuben S. Johnston remarried on September 20, 1911, to Dessie Roberts, born March 29, 1880. To this marriage, the following children were born:

Naomi Roberta, born September 16, 1912,

Mary Beulah, born May 22, 1914,

Glen Lynford, born August 19, 1916.

Reuben S. Johnston, passed away on September 29, 1953.

Dessie Roberts Johnston, passed away on September 22, 1945.

Grant Harrison Johnston, father of Richard R Johnston, was the eldest son of Reuben S. and Mary E. (McKee) Johnston, being born August 9, 1888 in Liberty Township, Jefferson county, Iowa, on their home in the west half of the southwest quarter of section 34. On March 23, 1910 he was united in marriage to Ada Anderson, who passed away on August 17, 1910. On February 8, 1912, he married Myrtle Anderson. They had two children, being Richard Reuben, born January 31, 1913, and Robert Bruce, born September 8, 1918. Both were born on the farm located in the north half of the northeast quarter of Section 33, Liberty Township, Jefferson county, Iowa.