When about two years of age, the subject of this sketch was placed in charge of his paternal grandmother and his uncle, George Johnston, who resided on the homestead, in Cecil county.  Here he was carefully nurtured and trained, and here were planted the seeds which have since sprung up and brought forth fruit in his intellectual and moral life.  The family being Presbyterian in training, and of the type from which sprang those who in earlier years drafted the Mecklenberg Declaration, the lad was early imbued with those religious principles which ever serve as the true basis of mental growth and moral purpose.

The educational advantages of a half century ago were not such as are enjoyed by the youth of to-day; but such as the neighborhood provided and his uncle’s means afforded, were placed at the disposal of the boy, who soon manifested an aptitude to learn.  When but five years of age he was sent to what was then called a “Subscription School,” kept in the neighborhood.  This he attended during the next seven years, and in the Winter time until the year 1849, when he took charge as teacher of a school, in the Center School House, situated near Fair Hill, in Cecil county.

In the Spring of 1847 Mr. Johnston spent three months in Chesapeake City (in this county) as an apprentice to the carpenter business.  He completed his trade in the neighborhood in which he had been raised, and from the year 1851 to 1864 spent his time about equally in teaching school and working at his trade.

When the war of the rebellion broke out in 1861, Mr. Johnston, without hesitation, took the side of the Union, and was, during all those dark days, an ardent supporter of the Government, the intensity of his convictions being no doubt increased by the result of his observations during a business trip to Texas and through the South in the Winter of eighteen hundred and sixty and sixty-one.

In the Constitutional Convention of this State in 1864 he served with ability as committee clerk, having accepted the position at the solicitation of the late David Scott (of John), who was a member of that body.  While acting as committee clerk, Mr. Johnston had the honor of engrossing that section of the Constitution which abolished slavery in the State of Maryland.  Many years afterwards he presented the pen used on that occasion to Frederick Douglass, then United States Marshal of the District of Columbia.

Mr. Johnston’s health, which had always been precarious, became so bad in 1875 that he was obliged to abandon his trade and turn his attention to another occupation.  Accordingly, two years later he became connected with The Cecil Whig, and for about three years had charge of its local columns.  While associated with that journal, his attention was attracted to the mine of wealth offered to the investigator by the early history of Cecil county.  Prompted by a love of historical investigation, he was led to make researches into this mine—­a task