WILLIAM H JOHNSTON
Honored as the son of most worthy parentage and the father of a family that has
done great credit to their country and their bringing-up, W. H. Johnston is the
sixth in order of birth of seven children born of the marriage of Rev. Thomas M.
and Helen (Steele) Johnston, natives of Kentucky and North Carolina,
respectively. The father went to Missouri with his parents in the early
thirties and there studied law and became a journalist; later he entered the
ministry, which calling occupied the greater part of his life. He came to
California about 1859, followed by his family in 1860, and they settled first in
the San Ramon Valley, in Contra Costa County, removing in 1865 to Stockton.
While at Alamo he was publisher of the Pacific Observer, a Presbyterian organ.
In 1870 they moved to Berryessa Valley, in Napa County, where he had charge of
the Presbyterian Church work through his declining years. The present pastor of
this church at Winters, in 1923, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary as
successor to Rev. Thomas Johnston, He died in Napa in 1877.
The son, W. H. Johnston, was born in Greene County, Mo., on April 16, 1857, and
educated in the schools of San Joaquin and Napa Counties. He was brought up as a
farmer's son and early gave attention to the production of grain and stock. in
1886, in company with his brother, J. R. Johnston, he carried on a farm in
Berryessa Valley for four years when the partnership was dissolved. Our subject
was thereafter for thirty-seven years engaged in raising cattle and hogs in the
same location. Selling out the property in Napa County he came to Merced County
in 1908 and engaged in the dairy business and fruit raising near Atwater. He is
the owner of fifty acres on the edge of Atwater, a portion of the late 3. W.
Mitchell estate.
W. H. Johnston was married in Napa County in 1885, to Clara Wassum, the third of
seven children born to T. A. Wassum and his wife. She was born in Yountville,
Napa Valley, in 1865, and died from injuries received in a train and auto
collision at the Yam crossing on the Santa Fe, in 1921. There were four children
of the union: Edith (Mrs. W. S. Newhall), who has two children, William S. and
Franklin; Thomas H.; Finis, and Bennett M. Thomas H. served in Company C, 361st
Regiment of the A. E. F., and was honorably discharged on May 5, 1919. Finis
served in Company 14', 58th Infantry, 4th Division, and was killed in action at
Chateau Thierry, on July 18, 1918. Mr. Johnston recalls the first steam train to
Stockton in 1869. The family were living then on Sutter and Weber streets, that
city.
History of Merced County California With a
Biographical Review OF The Leading Men and Woman of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development from Early Days to the Present
Author: John Outcalt (1925)
William H. Johnston, page 772
Contributed by: Carol Lackey