Stephen Johnston, lawyer, Piqua. Mr. Johnston's ancestors were from the North of Ireland; his father, Stephen Johnston, and his uncle, Col. John Johnston, came to Ohio in 1808; the former was Government store-keeper, at Ft. Wayne, in the war of 1812, and on the 28th day of August in that year was killed by the Indians near that place. Mary Caldwell, of Kentucky, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was justly regarded as one of the remarkable women of her day; she was cotemporary with Daniel Boone, Little Turtle and Tecumseh was well acquainted with them, and of great service to the white population of the community. She was married in 1810, in Miami Co., Ohio, and died in September, 1861, aged 73 years. Stephen, her son, was born at Piqua, Ohio, on the 29th day of September, 1812; learned the saddler's trade, and worked at it fourteen years; in 1841, he was elected Sheriff of Miami Co., and served four years, during which time he began reading, law; in 1845, he was elected to the State Legislature, and subsequently engaged in farming and lumbering for five years; in 1850, he was admitted to the bar, and opened a law office in Piqua, where he has been in the practice ever since ; April 18, 1861, he entered the army as Captain in the 11th O. V. I., but resigned his commission in September of that year; he was early identified with the railroad interests of this section, and in 1849, drafted on a saddler's bench, the charter of the Columbus, Piqua & Indiana Railroad Company, of which he was the attorney for twenty years or more afterward in 1868, he was elected President of the Piqua Hydraulic Company under Mr. Johnston's energetic supervision; the enterprise, which had been deemed impracticable on account of its magnitude, was successfully accomplished, and the water works, in connection therewith, are unsurpassed for excellence and economy by any in the State the enterprise was first presented to the public in an intelligible form, through specifications made by Mr. Johnston, in 1870 his name has been prominently associated with every principal public improvement, and he has been the friend of laudable private enterprises as well as the agent for an association formed for the purpose of resisting legislation hostile to the canal, he secured the adoption by the Legislature, of a written report which ended the efforts of its enemies for the time being, and will be a formidable barrier to future unfriendly legislation he is an agreeable and courteous gentleman as well as energetic, determined and persevering as indicative of the latter qualities, it may be stated that for thirty years he fought the Government single-handed, in relation to a claim by reason of a stipulation made by the Pottawatomie Indians in a treaty intended to secure to the heirs of his father, a certain tract of land as a partial atonement for his death as above stated; finally, in 1863, Mr. Johnston accepted a compromise. In April, 1837, Mr. Johnston married Uretta, daughter of Chester Garnsey, of Piqua, formerly of Rochester, N. Y.; they have had seven children, four of whom are living his eldest son, Stephen C. Johnston, has been for several years engaged in the development of a gold mine near Charlotte, N. C., and his son, William C. Johnston, is at present a prominent attorney of this county, and Probate Judge of the same many points of great historic interest cluster around this family in its earlier days, which will be found in the text of this work. Politically, Mr. Johnston is a member of the Greenback party, and in 1877 was a candidate for Governor on that ticket; originally a Whig, he was one of the first to join the Republican party, and in 1864 was Presidential Elector for the Fourth District on the Lincoln ticket; in 1870, in consequence of the passage of the bill to strengthen the public credit, he voted with the Democrats, but in the canvass of 1876 he voted for Peter Cooper, and is still a persistent advocate of currency reform, and the payment of the public debt according to the laws under which it was contracted; he is now connected with the Ohio State University, at Columbus, Ohio, as President of the Board of Trustees, and is an earnest friend of the agricultural interests of the State.