William Johnston (1737 - 1785)

Born 1737 in Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, Scotland

Descendants

Died 3 May 1785 at about age 48 in Hillsboro, Orange, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

William Johnston was born in Scotland.

William Johnston is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: P-225831
Rank: Patriotic Service

William Johnston performed Patriotic Service in North Carolina in the American Revolution.

William Johnston migrated from Scotland to North Carolina.

William Johnston is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A064127.

William Johnston was a merchant, land speculator, and Revolutionary patriot^[1]. He was born in 1737 in Harthwood, parish of Lochmaben, Shire of Annandale, in the south of Scotland (see: Lochmaben Parish, Dumfriesshire, Scotland). His parents were Robert Johnston and Isabell(a) (Burnett) Johnston. He was the great-nephew of North Carolina's royal governor, Gabriel Johnston, and the nephew of Samuel Johnston of Edenton, revolutionary and early state leader in North Carolina^[1].

He married Ann (Hobart) Johnston. He immigrated to the area that is now North Carolina and Virginia, where his daughter Mary Amelia (Johnston) Alves, was born.

William Johnston established the Snow Hill Plantation (in what is now northern Durham County, North Carolina) in 1763. It was one of the earliest plantations in the area.^[2] An Indian Trading Path, first documented in 1670, runs through the property and once stretched 500 miles from a trading post near Petersburg, Virginia, to an area near Augusta, Georgia. ^{[2] [3]} Johnston established the Little River Store at the junction of the New Hope Road (later University Road) and the Indian Trading Path (later called Hillsborough Road.) This store became a well-known destination for travelers. ^[2] The land that was once Snow Hill Plantation was donated by DR Bryan to the Triangle Land Conservancy in 2007, and is being redeveloped and preserved through the work of UCAN (a Durham non-profit). ^[2] William Johnston's grave (one of the oldest marked grave sites in North Carolina) is on the land.

William Johnston was a member, along with James Hogg, Richard Henderson, and others, of the Transylvania Company, which engaged in land speculation in what would later become parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.

From the NCPedia entry on William Johnston ^[1]:

By 1756 William Johnston was in North Carolina where he acquired 150 acres in Orange County. Soon afterwards he apparently was sheriff of Granville County and was a member of a commission named to divide St. John's Parish in that county and, with others, to erect public buildings in Bute County, which was formed from Granville. By 1767 he was living in Hillsborough where he served on the earliest board of commissioners. Johnston also acquired a plantation, Snow Hill, about fifteen miles northeast of the town, where he established a general store. After making Richard Bennehan a partner, his Little River Store served a large area of that part of the colony. In partnership with James Thackston, Johnston also opened a store in Hillsborough. In addition to these stores and his extensive farming interests, Johnston engaged in trade as far away as Wilmington and Cross Creek and operated gristmills on some of the swift creeks in the region.

During the Regulator uprising in Orange County, Johnston informed Governor William Tryon of conditions there, and he was referred to as a colonel. Although Johnston was given funds to be used in raising troops, there is nothing to suggest that he participated in military activity. Beginning about 1774 Johnston and other men, including Richard Henderson, became involved in land speculation when they acquired land across the mountains in the Tennessee and Kentucky area in violation of royal directives. They lost much of this land but received other land as compensation.

Johnston served as a member of the Hillsborough district committee of safety during the revolution and represented Hillsborough in the Provincial Congresses in the spring and winter of 1776. These two sessions drew up the Halifax Resolves calling for independence and prepared the state's first constitution. Johnston also was a member of a commission named to establish a gun factory in Hillsborough, and at Snow Hill he apparently produced gunpowder, lead, and rifle flints. After the war Johnston acted privately as agent for Edmund Fanning of New York, formerly an unpopular colonial official in Orange County, but a man whom Johnston regarded as his friend. Johnston purchased Fanning's property scheduled for confiscation by the state and, in effect, saved it for Fanning.

Johnston's wife, Anne, ten years older than he, died at the age of 42 in February 1769, leaving a daughter. Johnston never remarried. The daughter, Amelia, later married Walter Alves and in about 1800 moved to Kentucky where she owned property inherited from her father. Johnston by his will granted freedom to his black servant woman, Esther, and made generous bequests to his widowed mother in Scotland and to other relatives living in England, Scotland, New York, and Virginia, as well as to his business partners.

William Johnston was agent to noted Virginia lawyer John Wickham (1763-1839). ^[4]

From the NCPedia entry on Edmund Fanning:

On his final departure from North Carolina Fanning had designated his friend, the Scottish merchant William Johnston, as his "Agent" in charge of his considerable estate. Although Fanning's properties were officially eligible for confiscation after 1779, Johnston did a masterful, sleight-of-hand job of evasion until his death on 3 May 1785, when that portion of the estate still in Fanning's name came into the hands of Johnston's executors. ^[5]

From the biographical Information from UNC website summary of Walter Alves Papers, 1771-1858 (collection no. 03792):

Many items pertain to the estate of Alves's father-in-law, William Johnston (d. 1785), mainly concerning the efforts of Edmund Fanning (1739-1818), North Carolina colonial official and Loyalist for whom Johnston had been agent, to recover properties confiscated during the Revolution. These estate papers include correspondence, 1805-1812, between Alves and John Wickham (1763-1839), noted Virginia lawyer, and relevant earlier papers. ^[4]

Please see the Snow Hill Plantation page for more information on the enslaved of Snow Hill.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} William Johnston entry in NCPedia, from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. https://ncpedia.org/biography/johnston-william. Accessed 26 Sep 2023.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Open Durham post on SNOW HILL PLANTATION / FARM, https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/snow-hill-plantation-farm. Accessed 31 Jan 2022.
3. ↑ Trading Path Association website, http://tradingpath.org/. Accessed 31 Jan 2022.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Biographical Information from UNC website summary of Walter Alves Papers, 1771-1858 (collection no. 03792). The Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/03792/. Online biographical information and summary of collection contents accessed 20 Dec 2016.
5. ↑ William Johnston mentioned in NCPedia entry on Edmund Fanning, http://www.ncpedia.org/biography/fanning-edmund. Accessed 4 Aug 2017.

• Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed August 11 2017), "Record of William Johnston", Ancestor # A064127.

• William Johnston estate business mentioned in James Hogg letters and correspondence in The Papers of James Iredell vol. 3: 1784-1789. Raleigh [N.C.]: Office of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources. 2003. 187-189. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/papers-of-james-iredell-vol.-3/2149029?item=2237522. Accessed 26 Sep 2023.

• William Johnston letters and correspondence in Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, "CSR Documents by Johnston, William, 1737-1785." Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/creators/csr10563. Accessed 26 Sep 2023.

• William Johnston listed in family line for Henry Powell Alves' application for membership in the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (application dated 21 Mar 1949; pp. 295-297 of 436), Ancestry.com. U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970. Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Microfilm, 508 rolls. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2204/images/32596_242299-00299?pId=701306. Accessed 5 Jun 2022.

• William Johnston (3rd great grandfather of Walter Johnston Alves) listed in family line for Walter Johnston Alves' application for membership in the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (application dated 26 Mar 1949; pp. 300-305 of 436), Ancestry.com. U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970. Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Microfilm, 508 rolls. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2204/images/32596_242299-00304?pId=701306. Accessed 5 Jun 2022.

• William Johnston mentioned in NCPedia entry on Edmund Fanning, http://www.ncpedia.org/biography/fanning-edmund. Accessed 4 Aug 2017.

• Walter Alves Papers, 1771-1858. (Collection no. 03792). The Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/03792/. Online biographical information and summary of collection contents accessed 20 Dec 2016.7

• Open Durham post on SNOW HILL PLANTATION / FARM, https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/snow-hill-plantation-farm. Accessed 31 Jan 2022.

• Trading Path Association website, http://tradingpath.org/. Accessed 31 Jan 2022.