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JAMES H. JOHNSTON
Vol. 3, p. 1080-1081

It is specially gratifying to accord in this volume specific
recognition to so large a number of the representative factors in the
educational circles of Oklahoma, and among the able and highly
esteemed members of the pedagogic profession who are holding
responsible and important educational office in the state is
Professor James Harvey Johnston, who is the efficient and popular
superintendent of the public schools of the City of Marietta,
judicial center of Love County.

Professor Johnston claims the Lone Star State as the place of his
nativity, is a scion of sterling pioneer families of that
commonwealth and his paternal ancestors came from Scotland and
settled in the Carolinas in the Colonial period of our national
history, representatives of the name thence removing to Tennessee and
becoming pioneers of that state. Robert Martin Johnston, grandfather
of the subject of this review, passed his entire life in Tennessee,
where he was killed by a horse, when comparatively a young man. His
widow later became the wife of Henry KING, and in 1850 the family
removed to Texas, where Mr. and Mrs. King passed the remainder of
their lives and where he became a pioneer farmer and cattle man. At
the King homestead in Texas was entertained General Zachariah Taylor,
when that gallant officer of the Mexican war was passing through
Texas along the old military road, on his way to Mexico. Mr.
Johnston's maternal grandfather, Benjamin C. King, was born and
reared in South Carolina and in 1845 became a pioneer settler near
Omaha, Morris County, Texas, where he engaged in farming and stock-
growing, and where he and his wife continued to reside until their
death.

Professor Johnston was born at Omaha, Texas, on the 8th of February,
1867, an is a son of James Harvey Johnston, Sr., and Mary (KING)
Johnston, the former of whom was born at Loudon, Loudon County
Tennessee, in 1836, and the latter of whom was likewise born in
Eastern Tennessee, in 1837. Both passed the closing years of their
lives at Omaha, Texas, where the father died in 1810 and the mother
in 1912.

James J. Johnston, Sr., was a youth at the time of the family
immigration to Texas, where he was reared to manhood and where his
marriage was solemnized. He became a successful ranchman and
influential and honored citizen of Morris County, and was there
called upon to serve many years in local offices of public trust,
including those of county commissioner and justice of the peace,
besides which he represented Morris County in the Texas Legislature,
his political allegiance having been given to the democratic party.
He was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy for four years,
representing practically the entire duration of the Civil war. He was
a member of Sutton's Brigade and took part in numerous important
engagements. He was a double-cousin of Clementine and Richard WILSON,
members of the celebrated millionaire New York family of that name.
He was prominent as a member of the Patrons of Husbandry for a long
period of years and both he and his wife were zealous members of the
Christian Church. Of their children, the eldest is Polina, who
resides at Tishomingo, Oklahoma, and is the widow of Albert CURLEE, a
contractor and builder by vocation. Elizabeth died at the age of
twenty-one years, she having been the wife of Peter F. HOLDER. James
H, Jr., of this review, was the next in order of birth. Louise is the
wife of William H. WRIGHT, a prosperous farmer near Omaha, Texas.
Edna died at the age of thirty-five years, as the wife of John C.
DAVIS, who is a farmer near Omaha, Texas. Dr. Lewis Johnston,
youngest of the children, was afforded the advantages of Nashville
University, at Nashville, Tennessee, and of Dallas University, at
Dallas, Texas, in the medical department of which later he was
graduated, and he is now engaged in the practice of his profession at
Jordantown, Texas.

Professor James H. Johnston received in his native town the
equivalent of a high-school education, and in the meanwhile he
initiated his pedagogic career by teaching in the Texas schools
during the winter terms. Through his service as a teacher he earned
the money which enabled him to complete his higher education. For two
years he was a student in the Sam Houston Normal School, at
Huntsville, Texas, and in this connection his mental alertness and
assiduity were shown in an emphatic way, for he completed within the
two years the work of the junior or third year. He left this school
in 1892, and, having won a Peabody scholarship in Peabody Normal
College, at Nashville, Tennessee, he attended that institution one
year and received therefrom the degree of Licentiate of Instruction.
Out of 115 contestants for this Peabody scholarship Professor
Johnston was one of the three who received therefrom the well earned
degree of Bachelor of Arts. For two years thereafter he taught in the
schools of Omaha, Texas, and he next held, for one year, a
professorship in Jeff Davis College, at Pittsburg, that state. The
following three years found him a member of the faculty of Emerson
College, at Campbell, Texas, and thereafter he was for three years
professor of mathematics in the high school at Denton, Texas. In
1907, the year that marked the admission of Oklahoma to statehood,
Professor Johnston became superintendent of the public schools at
Tishomingo, county seat of Johnston County, this state, where he
continued his service in this capacity until the autumn of 1914, when
he assumed his present office, that of superintendent of the public
schools of the City of Marietta, where he has under his direction two
well equipped schools, with a corps of sixteen efficient teachers and
with an enrollment of 600 pupils.

Professor Johnston shows his deep and abiding interest in his
profession by his unbounded enthusiasm in his work, and he himself
continued an ambitious student, with appreciation of the fact that
the whole course of life offers opportunities for advancing
education. It may thus be understood that he is distinctly
progressive and systematic in his labors and that his enthusiasm he
made infective as touching both teachers and students who come under
his influence. He has been a valued instructor in summer normal
schools in both Texas and Oklahoma and has taken courses on
educational subjects by availing himself of the advantages of the
best correspondence schools-notably those at Columbia University, New
York, and in Chicago, Illinois.

Professor Johnston is a staunch supporter of the cause of the
democratic party and both he and his wife are active and earnest
members of the Baptist Church. He has served many years as Sunday
school superintendent and is now teacher of the young men's Bible
class in the Baptist Church at Marietta. The Professor is actively
identified not only with the Love County Teachers' Association. He is
affiliated with Marietta Lodge, No. 102, Ancient Free & Accepted
Masons, of which he is past master; and with Tishomingo Chapter,
Royal Arch Masons, and Tishomingo he holds membership also in the
Brotherhood of American Yeomen, and at Marietta he is affiliated with
the camps of the Woodmen of the World and the Modern Woodmen of
America.

At Omaha, Texas, in 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Professor
Johnston to Miss Claudia WARD, and they have three children, whose
names and respective dates of birth are here noted: Laura, July 25,
1900; Julius, August 2, 1905; and Mary, September 14, 1907.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Carolyn Smith Burns on November 23, 1998.