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WILLIAM JOHNSTONE
Vol. 3, p. 1292-1294
Book includes picture

The career of William Johnstone was for many years a vital part of
the life and progress of Washington County, and particularly of the
City of Bartlesville. The history of the early development of that
locality must always give memorial to his name and career, since he
was one of the very first merchants and traders in the locality, and
found and utilized many opportunities to promote the welfare and
progress of the city. Successful in business, he was equally notable
for the public spirit which caused him to lend the influence of his
character and his name to the upbuilding of his home town and to the
general advancement of Oklahoma. Bartlesville has in many ways been
advanced to prosperity through the presence in its citizenship of
William Johnstone, whose death on July 14, 1915, brought to the
community a sense of loss which always attends the passing of a great
and good citizen.

Many men live most worthy and honorable lives, but with restricted
influence, and only a limited circle mourn their passing. But the
late William Johnstone was one whose life touched and influenced
thousands of others. While all business was suspended, flags floated
at half mast, there was a concourse of people not only from
Bartlesville but from all Washington County, and even from distant
portions of the state and adjoining states who gathered to pay honor
to his memory at his funeral.

Besides the funeral address delivered by the pastor of the Baptist
Church, the organization of Masons, Woodmen of the World, and the
Grand Army of the Republic, of which William Johnstone was an
honorary member, anticipated in the service, and many thousands of
individuals, numbering some of the prominent men of Oklahoma and
other states, were present.

Of the many individual tributes paid to this pioneer of
Bartlesville, one from a particularly prominent source was that
written to a local newspaper by Senator Robert L. Owen, who said: "I
was extremely sorry to see the passing into the spirit world of my
long time friend, William Johnstone. I had known him for about thirty
years and have always valued his splendid citizenship. No man in
Washington County has lived a more useful life. He was modest, always
cheerful, always kind, made friends and made no enemies and was a
good son, a good citizen and a good man."

A native of Canada, William Johnstone was born at Montreal, Province
of Quebec, in 1859, a son of Samuel and Maria (Higgins) Johnstone.
His father was a native of Dumfries, Scotland, while the mother was
born at Montreal, her father being an Irishman and her mother an
English woman. After the close of the war between the states Samuel
Johnstone took his family in 1866 to the new northwest country, to
Minnesota, where he conducted a general store at Glenwood in Pope
County. Owing to the mother's ill health Samuel Johnstone following
the advice of physicians, brought his family to the Indian Territory.
The journey was made most of the way in a prairie schooner and from
Yankton, Dakota Territory, they came direct to Coody's bluff in the
old Cherokee Nation, arriving there in the year 1876. Samuel
Johnstone was a farmer and stock raiser there for two years, and his
wife having regained her strength, he then returned north and located
in Montana, where he lived until his death in 1887. The mother is
still living and spends her time in the homes of her children, part
of the time at Bartlesville and in the summer living in Montana.
William, who was the oldest of their large family of children, chose
to remain in Indian Territory after his parents returned north.
Another son who has resided for a number of years at Bartlesville in
John Johnstone. Other brothers and sisters who survived William
Johnstone are: Mrs. J. M. Powers, Mrs. Richard Stanton, Mrs. G. R.
McLeish, Samuel Johnstone and Adam Johnstone, all of whom live in
Montana or in Canada.

The late William Johnstone had only meager advantages in the way of
schools, since about the time he was ready for schooling his parents
moved to the Minnesota Frontier, and most of his training came from
experience in his father's store rather than from books. He was a
youth of seventeen when the family came to Coody's Bluff in 1876, and
his home had been in old Indian Territory and Oklahoma almost forty
years. For about four years he was employed at Coody's Bluff by Henry
Armstrong in the latter's store. While thus employed he met Miss
Lillie Armstrong, niece of his employer and daughter of E. H.
Armstrong, a member of the prominent Journeycake family of Indian
Territory. The two married January 12,1882.

Later as an employee of J. H. Bartles, William Johnstone had charge
of the latter's temporary store at the mouth of Bird Creek. During
the construction of the Frisco Railway he was connected with the
commissary department. In 1882, acting for Mr. Bartles, he
established a general store and trading place near the Little Caney
River on the old Post road between Pawhuska and Coffeyville. In 1884
with George B. Keeler he started a general store on the west side of
the Caney River, the first mercantile establishment in that section
of the present City of Bartlesville, at the north end of the present
Delaware Avenue. Outside of these trading posts Bartlesville had
little to distinguish it for a number of years, until the discovery
of oil and gas inaugurated the great era of prosperity. Mr. Johnstone
and Mr. Keeler were associated as merchants until about 1896, when
Mr. Johnstone sold out to his partner. In the meantime they had also
conducted a sawmill for the manufacture of walnut lumber. This lumber
they hauled to Chelsea, a distance of about thirty miles, and then
shipped it by railway to St. Louis. The firm of Johnstone and Keeler
also operated extensively in the cattle business, and after selling
out his mercantile interests Mr. Johnstone devoted most of his time
for several years to the cattle industry.

Some of the features of his business success were revealed by a
writer in the Bartlesville Enterprise, in the following words: "Hard
work soon started the young man on the road to success and his
hustling, energetic disposition stamped him as a man who would 'do to
tie to.' Warm hearted, pleasant and always sociable, he drew men to
him as a magnet and his range of friends was co-extensive with his
range of acquaintances. Nor did this quality leave him after he began
to pile up the fortune in this world's goods--he was always the same
kind, considerate, good-natured friend of humanity."

About 1903 Mr. Johnstone retired largely from the cattle business
and interested himself in the oil fields, and became responsible for
many important developments, and in that as in other things was a
pioneer. Using the same good judgment that had characterized his
mercantile and cattle career, it was not long before he became
independently wealthy. He never retired altogether from the cattle
industry, and up to the last kept an excellent farm a short distance
below Bartlesville on the Caney River and had one of the finest herds
of blooded cattle in the state.

With R. L. Beattie and other people from Winfield, Kansas, Mr.
Johnstone established the Bartlesville National Bank, and was its
president until May, 1908, when he resigned on account of ill health
and about the same time closed out many other interests which
required active supervision on his part. He was associated with W. A.
Letson and others in establishing the First National Bank at Dewey in
1906, and was president of that institution until he sold his
interests. In 1898 with J. E. Campbell he founded the Bank of Nowata,
and was its president until he sold his interests to Mr. Campbell. He
thus had a part in establishing and was president of three different
banks in Northern Oklahoma. In 1910 he built the splendid office
building that now bears his name at the corner of Third and Johnstone
Avenue. Johnstone Avenue is one of the principal thoroughfares of
Bartlesville, and by its name is another permanent memorial to the
career and activities of Mr. Johnstone. He also built a number of
other structures in Bartlesville and any account of the city's
development must frequently mention his name. He and George B. Keeler
and J. H. Bartles installed the first phone lines in all Northern
Oklahoma. They put in the plant to connect their stores with Caney,
Kansas, twenty miles to the north. Bartlesville at that time had no
railroads and no telegraphic communication with the outside world,
and the telephone line was a private plant primarily for the service
of the Bartlesville merchants. Mr. Johnstone was one of the original
stockholders in the Maire Hotel at Bartlesville, and was one of a
number of liberal public spirited local citizens who invested in that
enterprise without expectation of complete remuneration but with the
object of giving Bartlesville a hotel that would properly represent
the dignity of the city to the traveling public.

For many years he was one of the most active in promoting
Bartlesville's educational progress. He was president of the school
board from its organization until he resigned in 1908, and the fine
school system of the city is largely a monument to his energy and
liberality. He was an active member of the local chamber of commerce.
In politics he was a republican, was a member of the Baptist Church,
but as much as any man in Bartlesville gave liberally to all churches
for their building and maintenance. At different times he interested
himself in the larger movements of public life in Oklahoma. He was a
member of the state committee of the republican party for a number of
years, and it was largely due to his efforts that a Federal court was
established at Bartlesville during the territorial days, and that
institution was the primary reason for making Bartlesville the county
seat of Washington County. He also gave both time and means to the
success of the statehood movement, and spent portions of two winters
in Washington working for the admission of Oklahoma. In political
affairs, however, he worked with an eye single to good government and
improvement, and never showed any desire for the honors of politics
apart from the rendering of real service to the community. He was a
Knight Templar and a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a
member of the Mystic Shrine, and also affiliated with the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks and the Woodmen of the World.

A large part of the present City of Bartlesville is located on land
that was originally contained in the Johnstone allotment or farm,
comprising some three or four hundred acres. This land was accrued by
the Government as a townsite, but in the early days was used by Mr.
Johnstone for farming purposes. His home was an attractive residence
built in 1884. He also owned an entire block of land bounded by
Eighth and Ninth streets and Delaware and Cherokee avenues. His own
home was at 800 Cherokee Avenue. During the course of his active
career in and about Bartlesville, Mr. Johnstone witnessed every
important and development, and never stood back and allowed others to
engage in public spirited undertakings without his individual
cooperation. Until he retired from business in 1908 he was one of the
leading men of influence in Bartlesville's history.

His first wife, who as already noted was of prominent Indian stock,
died in 1892. Her three children are: Rilla, wife of H. W. Pemberton
of Bartlesville, and the mother of three children; Nellie, wife of
Howard D. Cannon, cashier of the First National Bank of Dewey, and
they have one child; and Leo H., who was educated at the Culver
Military Academy in Indiana and was associated with his father in the
management of the latter's business affairs.

In 1902 Mr. Johnstone married Miss Stella Bixler, a daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. W. W. Bixler of Bartlesville. Mrs. Johnstone, who was born
in Illinois, is of white parentage and of good American stock. She
now spends her time near her farm in Ochelata. She is the mother of
one daughter, Virginia, who bears a striking resemblance to her
honored father.

What the activities and character of the late Mr. Johnstone meant to
the community of Bartlesville was well expressed editorially in the
Bartlesville Enterprise, and it is appropriate to preserve some of
these tributes therein expressed as a part of this permanent record.
"So closely was the life of this man woven into that of this state
and especially of this community, that in the years to come his good
deeds will be recalled, his ever readiness to respond to the needs of
the country and his fellow men will be called to mind and though dead
he will still live in the memory of his fellow men. Few of the 'old
settlers' here are yet old men. Among the oldest residents few have
reached the three score and ten milestone along life's highway.
Although but little more than half a century old when the summons
came, William Johnstone was a pioneer in Oklahoma, a pioneer in all
that term means. He came to Oklahoma while yet a young man, without
riches, as riches are wont to be estimated, in dollars and cents, yet
immensely wealthy in fact, wealthy in push, in honesty, in
consideration of his fellows, in energy; rich in all that makes a
man, for money does not make the man, and at once he became a factor
in building this great commonwealth. Few indeed were the unmoistened
eyelids among these 'old settlers' in Bartlesville this morning as
men passed on the streets and in subdued tones said 'Bill Johnstone
is dead'; few indeed were the voices in which there was not a
suspicion of that choking sensation, and men hurried away to hide the
tears that would come. Certain it is that some men so live that the
memory of them, their many good deeds, their exemplary lives, their
splendid characteristics, is so closely woven into the warp and woof
of humanity that though their bodies lie in the bosom of mother
earth, though the years come and go, the memory of the man remains
green in the hearts of his fellow men."

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Annajo Limore, September 29, 1998.

[NOTE: Kathleen [kmgrone@hotmail.com ] on 09 Oct 1999 writes she is
related to Lillie Armstrong. Her great grandfather William Eldridge
Armstrong is my 2nd Greatgrandfather.]