USA > Washington DC > Eminent and representative men of Virginia and the District of Columbia in the nineteenth century. With a concise historical sketch of Virginia > Part 51
USA > Virginia > Eminent and representative men of Virginia and the District of Columbia in the nineteenth century. With a concise historical sketch of Virginia > Part 51
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was promoted to the chair of practice of
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medicine, which he still occupies. In ment of diseases of the lungs and heart, 1882 an episode occurred to change the upon which he has written much. Dr. usual direction of Dr. James' life. At James, who is a man of strong religious that time the party known as readjusters convictions, is a member of the Baptist obtained for a time an overwhelming church, in which he has held prominent political ascendency in the state, having positions.
complete control of every department of the state government. It was part of the policy of this party to bring all the educational and eleemosynary insti- tutions under political influence and con- trol in the interest of that party. The board of visitors and faculty of the Med- ical college of Virginia resisted this devotion of the educational institutions of the state to such a purpose, and espe- cially the application of the college con- fided to their management. In this crisis, He married Miss Julia Jesse, daughter of William T. and Mary D. Jesse of Lan- caster county, Va., and three children, of whom two are living, were born to them. One of his sons is a graduate of the Rich- mond college. During his long connec- tion with the Medical college of Virginia, covering a period of twenty-four years, Dr. James has become noted as physician, lecturer and teacher. He is very popular both as a citizen and as a physician. In 1888 he was elected physician to the Rich- Dr. James, against his wishes, was elected mond city hospital, and served one term. dean of the faculty, but having been elected he felt that duty demanded he JOHN MORGAN JOHNSON
should accept the responsibility and make was born at Alexandria, November 21,
a loyal and determined resistance. This resistance was successful, and under great difficulty was followed by a season of 1847: was educated at Kemper's school, and enlisted in company D of the Sixth Virginia (Clarke) cavalry, Payne's bri- marked prosperity to the college and a gade, Fitzhugh Lee's division. He went large increase of its students. When in, in 1864, as a private soldier and served their contest was completed, Dr. James as such through the war, being in the
resigned the dean's office to devote him- self to the more congenial pursuits pertain- ing to his chair and other professional work. He is a member of the Virginia state Medical society and of the Richmond Medical and Surgical society, of which he has served as president. He has been a frequent contributor to medical litera- ture, and has built up an enviable reputa- tion as a lecturer and teacher of medicine. following battles: Millford, Waynesboro, Lacey's Spring, Tom's Brook, Columbia Furnace, Cedar Creek, Fisher's Hill, and all the other cavalry fights under Early in the valley, and also at Dinwiddie court house and Five Forks. After the war Mr. Johnson returned to school at Alexandria, and in 1869 went into the mercantile business at that place, remain- ing as clerk for four years, studying law As a lecturer he is forcible, clear and in the meantime. He was admitted to the bar in 1872 and located at Alexandria, where he has since remained. He was
direct in his delivery, and he uses no notes. He is recognized as the most competent medical diagnostician in the commonwealth's attorney of the city for state, and, though a general practitioner, two terms, and has been a delegate to has attained wide distinction in the treat-| several state and congressional conven-
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tions. Mr. Johnson was married in 1887 to Constance C. Beach of Alexandria, and to them were born three children, two of whom, Conrad and Marion, still survive. The father of Mr. Johnson, also named John Morgan Johnson, was born in Culpeper county in 1799, was a merchant in Alexandria and Philadelphia up to 1843, and from 1843 to 1855 he was postmaster of the house of representa- tives. He married, in 1825, Rebecca Josepha Moss; daughter of William Moss of Fairfax county. William Moss was clerk of the courts of Fairfax county from the year 1801 to 1835, the time of his death, and was one of the four lieutenants of of the One Hundred and Sixth regiment Virginia line, who bore the body of General George Washington from the mansion to the family vault. To the union of J. Morgan Johnson, Sr., there were born eleven children, of whom eight lived to maturity, as follows: Will- iam M .; Alexander H .; Margaretta H., wife of Robert Jamieson; Virginia L .. deceased; Robert C., killed at the battle of Frazier's farm in 1862; Mary Eliza- beth, John Morgan and Gertrude M. The great-grandfather of John Morgan
John Moss was born in England, came to America late in 1600 with his two brothers, one of whom settled in Virginia and one in Alabama. He was the ma- ternal great-great-grandfather of the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. John Moss, the great-grandfather, mar- ried Ann Minor in the year 1745; they were the parents of William Moss. John Moss was the commissioner of revenue for Virginia for many years, and a justice of peace of Fairfax county from 1785 to 1796, and became, by reason of being the oldest justice in commission, the high Johnson was Nathaniel Johnson. He sheriff of the county in the year 1796. was born in Culpeper county, and was a farmer by occupation. He married Eliza- beth Fishback, and to them were born John Morgan, deceased; Dr. Frenk John- son, deceased; and Elizabeth, deceased, who was the widow of Mr. Ship of Clarke arms of Col. Joseph Holmes in Book of county, Virginia. The father of Nathan- iel Johnson was John Johnson, The father of John Johnson was Peter John- son, who died in Culpeper county in 1755.
The paternal ancestors of Mr. Johnson were English. Elizabeth was the daugh- ter of Martin Fishback, who was the son of Frederick Fishback of Culpeper
county, Virginia. Frederick Fishback was the son of John Fishback, who mar- ried Agnes Hoeger, in the year 1720. John Fishback came to Virginia in 1714 with John Kemper and others and settled in Orange county. Agnes Hoeger was the daughter of Henry (Parson) Hoeger or Hager, who was the minister of the german settlement on the Rappahannock river, and for whom the governor was petitioned to send an assistant minister to relieve him on account of feebleness of age. He was a Lutheran preacher. (See "Mead's Old Churches and Old Families of Virginia.")
Gertrude Moss, née Holmes, was the daughter of Joseph Holmes of Frederick county, who was a descendant of Col. Jo- seph Holmes of Bally Kelly, county of Londonderry, Ireland. (See coat of Heraldry.) Hunter Holmes, the brother of Gertrude, was killed at Mackinaw in 1814; a sword was voted and given to his nearest relatives by Virginia for his gal- lant conduct in this battle, which is now in the possession of Major Holmes Con- rad of Winchester, Va., he being one of the nearest relatives. Joseph Holmes, a
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brother of Gertrude Moss, was the gov- | since made his residence in Alexandria, Va. ernor of Mississippi and United States senator from that state. Hugh Holmes, another brother, was congressman from
Dennis Johnston, the father of Major Johnston, and son of William Johnston, was born in Fairfax county, Va., in 1788, the valley district of Frederick county, and died at the old homestead in that and judge of the general court of Vir- county in 1852. He was a large farmer ginia from 1805 to 1825, and one of the and was magistrate and coroner of Fair- editors of second Virginia reports. fax county for forty years. During the David Holmes was a circuit judge for
war of 1812 and 1814 he commanded a the counties of Rockingham, Shenan- company of militia from his native county. doah and Frederick. The wife of Joseph In 1809 he was married to Rebecca Sims, Holmes was a Miss Hunter, they were the ancestors on the maternal side of the Conrads, Boyds, McGuires, McCormicks,
and of their children six reached matur- ity, viz .: William S., James, Dennis, Jane A., Mary A., and Francis Edgar - Hunters, Faulkners, and others of the all now deceased. Francis E. married valley of Virginia.
Annie Burke, and left two children, MAJOR GEORGE JOHNSTON. James E. and Fannie E. Johnston. Den- nis Johnston was married to his second George Johnston, son of Dennis and Eliza Johnston, was born in Fairfax county, Va., July 27th, 1829, and was edu- cated in the schools of his native county wife, Eliza Dale, of Fairfax county, in 1826, and of the five children of this mar- riage four grew to maturity, as follows: John Richards, now deceased, who mar- and Alexandria, Va. After leaving school ried Marcia Orme, of Georgetown, D. C., he farmed the estate of West Grove, in and left two children, George I. and Eliza Fairfax county, until May 24th, 1861, Ellen; George, whose name stands at when he entered the Confederate States the head of this sketch; Charles Fenton army, and served for four years - most of the time with the army of northern Virginia - and surrendered with General Joseph E. Johnston, at Greensboro, N. C.
Mercer, deceased, who married and had one child, Kate M .; and Samuel Richards Johnston, civil engineer, who served in the army of northern Virginia for four He was married October 29th, 1857, to years, and surrendered as colonel of en- Henrietta Ege, daughter of M. G. Ege, gineers with Gen. Robert E. Lee at Ap- of Carlisle, Pa .; she died April 16th, 1862, pomattox Court House, Va. He was at Gordonsville, Va., leaving three child- ren, viz .: George Dennis, Frederick Watts, and Henrietta Ege. On Novem- ber 29th, 1871, Major Johnston married Isobel Gregory, daughter of William Gregory, of Alexandria. The only child of this marriage died in infancy. At the close of the war Maj. Johnston returned to West Grove and resumed the occupa- tion of farming, but as the dwelling had
married in 1860 to Mary Ege, of Carlisle, Penn., who died in 1879, leaving one son, Dr. Robert E. Lee Johnston, of Chatta- nooga, Tenn. Col. Johnston was married in 1886 to Sara C. Watts, daughter of Judge Frederick Watts, of Carlisle, Penn., and has one child, Eliza Henrietta. In 1865 he resumed the practice of his pro- fession, and is now (1892) with the New York, Lake Erie & Western railroad com- been burned during his absence, he has pany, and resides at East Orange, N. J.
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William Johnston, son of George and | burial at Morristown in the presence of a Sarah McCarty Johnston, was born in Fairfax county, Va., in 1751, and died there in 1802. He was a farmer and a friend and neighbor of Gen. Washington. During the Revolutionary war he served in the Virginia continental line with the rank of major, and under an act of the Virginia assembly received a grant of 4,667 acres of land for his services. He was one of the original members of the society of the Cincinnati, and the certifi- cate and badge of membership are in the possession of the family. He was also a member of Washington lodge of F. & A. M., No. 22, Alexandria, Va., and was
large number of officers, and the most respectable inhabitants of the place." Thus writes Colonel Robert H. Harrison of General Washington's staff, in a letter announcing his death to his mother. Mrs. Washington also wrote of her per- sonal attention during his brief illness and offered his mother the sympathy of a friend and kinswoman. The letters written by Colonel Johnston during his brief military career are valuable contri- butions by Revolutionary literature, and some of the most interesting are embodied in the " Life of Colonel Levin Powell" edited by R. C. Powell, M. D., of Alexan- present at ceremonies at the lodge on the dria, Va., published in 1877.
death of General Washington December George Johnston, Sr., was son of Dr. James Johnston, who came from Annan- dale, Scotland, in the latter part of the seventeen century and settled in Mary- land. His five sons located in Maryland and Virginia, and their numerous descend- 16, 1799, and also at the funeral on the following Wednesday. His wife was a Miss Simpson, and by her he had five children, Dennis (the father of Major George Johnston), George, William, Frank and Ann. Ann married Alexander ants are widely scattered over the Mackenzie, of Alexandria, Va., and left two children, Alexander, deceased, and Ann S.
George Johnston, brother of William, and son of George and Sarah McCarty Johnston, was born in Fairfax county. He was a graduate of William and Mary college, Williamsburg, Va., and practiced law in Loudoun county, where he stood high in his profession. In August, 1776, he entered the Revolutionary army as captain in the Second regiment Virginia continental line, but was soon called to serve as aid-de-camp on the staff of General Washington with the rank of ing seconded Mr. Henry's resolutions, is one of those many friends of liberty who are now sliding fast from the recollection of their country, and who deserve to be rescued from oblivion by a more particular
middle and southern states. George was educated in England for the bar, and set- tled in Fairfax county, Va., which he rep- resented in the house of burgesses for many years. He was a member of that branch of the Virginia assembly when Patrick Henry offered the celebrated res- olutions that led to the war between Great Britain and the American colonies, and seconded those resolutions in a speech of great power and eloquence. William Wirt, in his "Life of Patrick Henry," says "Mr. Johnston, now only known from the circumstance of his hav-
colonel. A brilliant career was untimely ended by his death of fever on May 29, 1777, at Morristown, N. J., where " his re- mains were decently interred on the even- ing of the 30th inst. in the common place notice than I can bestow upon them. Of
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Mr. Johnston, I can only learn that he after his academical training, spent three was a lawyer in the northern neck, highly years at the university of Virginia in the respected in his profession, a scholar distinguished for vigor of intellect, cogency of argument, firmness of char- acter, love of order and devotion to the cause of national liberty; in short, exactly calculated by his love of the cause, and the broad and solid basis of his under- standing, to uphold the magnificent structure of Henry's eloquence." the study of medicine, together with his literary and classical course. He then attended the medical department of the university of New York city, graduating there in 1876. He settled and began practice in Abingdon, a flourishing city in the southwestern part of Virginia. He practiced there till 1878, when he removed to Richmond, where he has been engaged Mr. Johnston died just before the break- ing out of the Revolutionary war. He first married Miss Thompson, and had two daughters; one married the famous " Parson Massie," and the other Col. Burr Harrison, military secretary to Gen. Washington. His second wife, Sarah McCarty of Fairfax county, was the mother of William, George and other Sr., his wife Sally McCarty, and son Col. George Johnston, taken at Williamsburg in 1765, are in the possession of the family. The Johnston crest is a winged spur with the motto "Nunquam non paratus." in his profession with a large measure of success. He makes no specialty of any branch of his profession, but rather likes surgery, in which he is wonderfully suc- cessful. He was for a number of years a director of the Southwestern Lunatic asylum, is a member of the state Medical society and of the Abingdon academy of medicine, the Richmond academy of children. Portraits of George Johnston, medicine, the Richmond Medical and Surgical society, having been at one time the president of each of them. He is a member of the American Medical asso- ciation and is one of the founders of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological DR. GEORGE BENJAMIN JOHNSTON, association. For three years he was pro- fessor of anatomy in the Virginia Medical college, was surgeon of the First Virginia regiment, and afterward was surgeon of the First Virginia brigade. He is com- mandant of the veteran corps of the First Virginia regiment, being the first to hold the position. He is at present visiting physician to St. Sophia's home for the aged and St. Joseph's Orphan asylum. He is the consulting surgeon to the Rich- mond Ear, Eye and Throat infirmary, and has held this position twelve years. He is member of the Roman Catholic church and of the Catholic Knights of America. Dr. Johnson married Miss Mary McClung of Tennessee, October 12, 1880. She
a son of Dr. John Warfield Johnston, ex- United States senator, and himself a prominent lawyer, was born at Tazewell court house, July 25, 1853. The father, Senator Johnston, was a nephew of the celebrated Joseph E. Johnston, the first commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. The father died in Richmond, February 26, 1889. On the maternal side Dr. Johnston sprang from equally good blood as that of his father, his mother being Nickettie B. Floyd of Pulaski county, the daughter of Dr. John B. Floyd, ex-governor of the state, ex-member of congress and a lineal descendant of John B. Floyd, Buchanan's secretary of war. She is still living. George B. Johnston, died July 10, 1881.
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JAMES ALFRED JONES, LL. D.
This prominent citizen of Richmond, Va., the son of James B. Jones, of the county of Mecklenburg, Va., and Judith Bailey, his wife, was born in that county, June 3, 1820. His father, leading, on his country seat, a life of retirement, illustra- ted the independence of the farmer, and the hospitalities of the Virginia gentleman, in the palmy days in which he lived. With no taste for public station, he was yet a man of mark and influence in his county, and as a delegate from it he rendered service to his state in its legislative halls; and was from an early age, nearly to the close of his life, an active and leading magistrate on the bench of the county court of his county, in its olden dignity and usefulness. He died in 1834, his wife long surviving him to rear their four sons, of which she proved herself as capable as she had been fortunate in making happy his home and life. James B. Jones was the son of Tingnal Jones, of Warwick county, Va., descendant of Matthew Jones, whose mansion now stands in that county, with the inscription of the date 1727. Tingnal Jones married Martha Anderson, the daughter of Major Thomas Anderson, who removed from Charles City county, Va., to Mecklenburg county, prior to the Revolutionary war. Major Anderson was an intimate friend of Col. William Byrd (the distinguished man of letters and sec- retary of the colony of Virginia), and was attracted to Mecklenburg by the accounts given of it by his friend Col. Byrd, who, as commissioner, in running the line divid- ing Virginia and North Carolina, fell in love with that country and possessed him- self of a princely domain in it, giving it the name of Eden. The second wife of Major Anderson, great-grandmother of
James Alfred Jones, was Miss Clark; her mother's maiden name, Henrietta Maria Hardiman.
The mother of James Alfred Jones, Judith Bailey Hall, was a native of Hali- fax, N. C. (born at the time Halifax was the seat of government of that state). She was the daughter of Dr. Robert Hall, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, whose grandfather, coming from the island of Bermuda to the United States, was one of the colonists of Fleur de Hundred, a settlement on the lower James river. He married a Quakeress, Martha Pleasants, of Philadelphia, a member of the family to which ex-Governor Pleasants of Vir- ginia belonged. His son, William Hall, married Susanna Poythress, and, through this marriage, become connected with Richard Bland of Revolutionary fame, whose daughter was the mother of John Randolph of Roanoke. A sister of Will- iam Hall (Patsy) married Mr. Waller, an eminent lawyer of Williamsburg, then the colonial seat of government of Virginia, and their daughter married Judge Henry Tazewell and was the mother of the dis- tinguished statesman and jurist, Littleton Waller Tazewell. The maternal grand- parents of James Alfred Jones were French; their surname Nobbs. Landing in this country at Norfolk, Va., they re- moved to Hampton, Va., where they died. James Alfred Jones was one of a family of four brothers, viz .: Robert Tingnal, Beverley, Edward Littleton and himself. Robert Tingnal, the eldest, a graduate of the Military academy at West Point, fell in the war between the states, at Seven Pines, at the head of the Twelfth Alabama regiment, of which he was colonel. Bev- erley, a distinguished master of arts of the university of Virginia, entered upon the practice of law and died at an early age.
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Edward Littleton, a bright youth, died in the laws; has an extensive reputation young. James Alfred Jones, on the 4th as a sound lawyer; is a logical and concise of July, 1839, at the age of nineteen, grad- legal debater; and his learning, discrim- uated at the university of Virginia with the ination, judgment and pure moral charac- degree of master of arts. He has since received the title of LL. D. from Rich- mond college. Commencing the study of law, in connection with his academic stud- ies, in the university, he continued this study for a year after graduating, in the city of Richmond, under the guidance of the eminent lawyer, Conway Robinson; and was licensed to practice, in the courts of Virginia, in July, 1840. In April, 1841, he located in Petersburg, Va., and began the practice of law, which he has followed
acter justify the prediction that he would make an excellent judge of the supreme court." He has never served in any polit- ical capacity since his removal to Rich- mond, which was made to devote himself exclusively to his profession. Educated in the doctrine of states' rights, at the university of Virginia, he has steadily ad- hered to it throughout his life. During the more active portion of his career Mr. Jones has served as director and counsel of some of the railroads and banks of ever since, removing to Richmond in 1857. the state. He is now a trustee of Rich- mond college.
He has now been engaged in the success- ful practice of his profession fifty years.
On June 30, 1858, in Mobile, Ala., he In 1850, he was elected a member of the married Mary Henry, daughter of James convention, called to consider the amend- G. and Lavinia C. Lyon, of that city, and ments to the state constitution. This a niece of the late Francis Strother Lyon, convention assembled in October, 1850, a distinguished citizen of Alabama, of to January, 1851, continued in session un- gress of the United States before that
and, excepting an interval from October til July, 1851. The proposed amendments met with no favor from Mr. Jones, nor the constitution, which was framed by that body and adopted by the people. He was, indeed, the only conservative in its bama during its trouble in the forties. For true sense, in that body.
In 1853 he was elected a member of the state senate from the Petersburg district, and served one term, which ended in the spring of 1857, removing to Richmond very soon after it expired. Prior to com- ing to Richmond, his practice was in the courts of Petersburg and the adjacent counties. His practice in Richmond has been, for the most part, confined to the supreme court of appeals. It was dis-
which he was a representative in the con- state seceded, and afterward in the con- gress of the Confederate States; but who was perhaps most distinguished as mana- ger of the finances of the state of Ala- nearly twenty-eight years this lovely woman adorned his house and charmed his life. She died March 30, 1886, leaving an only child, Mary Morris Jones, who survives to cheer the evening of his days, inheriting the sweetness of her mother's nature, and her active benevolence and charities.
DR. THOMAS MARSHALL JONES.
Among the native-born Virginians who criminately written of him, when spoken have achieved prominence in the medical of as a suitable person to ffll a seat on the profession is Thomas Marshall Jones. He court of appeals bench: "He is learned is of English and Scotch extraction, and
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a descendant of one of the oldest and July 29, 1845. Mrs. Carrie (Randolph) most honored families of the state, Jones survived until 1879. and traces his American ancestry to days long prior to the Revolution. His great-great-grandfather, Gabriel Jones, was born near Williamsburg, Va., in 1724, and was one of the most renowned lawyers in the valley of Virginia. He married Margaret Strother in 1748, and among the children born to them were Strother Jones and a daughter who was married to Gen. Harvey, of Richmond, Va. Strother Jones was born in Fred- erick county, Va., in 1758, by vocation was a planter, and also was a hero of the Revolution. In 1780 he married Frances Thornton, who bore him one son -- Wil- liam Strother Jones-Strother Jones, the father, dying in 1790.
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