WILLIAM
WILLARD JOHNSON, the son of a veteran of the Civil war, is a
native of West Middlesex, Mercer county, Pennsylvania, born April 6,
1868, to Jacob M. and Emma T. (Eakin) Johnson. The father was
born in New Brighton. Pennsylvania, February 12, 1842, and he was the
son of David and Maria (Covert) Johnson. The father of
David was born in Harmony, Beaver county.
Jacob M. Johnson,
father, was reared in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, and ill his early
life was a steamboat engineer on the Ohio. He married in Beaver county,
where his wife was born, and about 1867 went to Mercer county, locating
in West Middlesex, where he has since resided. He was a soldier in the
Civil war, member of Company C, Sixty-third Pennsylvania Regiment of
Volunteers. He entered as a private soldier in 1861 - -first year of
the war-and was a musician for one year. He is now a member of the
McCall Grand Army Post, No. 456. Upon going to West Middlesex he
engaged in the hardware and lumber business, continuing in the same
about twelve years, when he suffered from a stroke of paralysis, since
which he has been retired. Politically, he is an ardent Republican; in
church faith, he adheres to that of the Presbyterian church. He is
counted among the worthy and honorable members of the Masonic
fraternity, being a Master Mason. Until his misfortune in ill health,
he was successful in his business operations. His wife died in 1888,
aged forty-two years. She left two children - William W. and Maud M.,
wife of Dr. B. B. Snodgrass, of Rochester, Pennsylvania. For his second
wife, Mr. Johnson married Mrs. Mattie McMillan, nee Crowl. She died in
August, 1907.
William W. Johnson was born and reared in West
Middlesex. and has spent the greater part of his life there. He
graduated from the high school in 1886 and in 1890 from Allegheny
College, Meadville. The following year he was employed in a wholesale
hardware house in Cleveland, Ohio, and the next year engaged in the
hardware business at New Brighton, Pennsylvania. His father's health
failing, he returned home to care for his father's hardware and lumber
business.
Politically, Mr. Johnson is a stanch defender of
Republican party principles, and on this ticket was elected, in 1904,
as a member of the state legislature, serving in the sessions of
1905-6. He has also served as burgess of his home borough. Being a
Christian and believing in the faith of the Presbyterian church, he is
a member of the same. In Masonry he has been much interested and is now
advanced to the degree of a thirty-second degree Mason; also belongs to
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Johnson was happily
married in 1894 to Margaret, daughter of James Byers, of West
Middlesex, of whom the following is an account: James Byers, retired
merchant of West Middlesex, was born in New Bedford, Lawrence county,
Pennsylvania, January 1, 1828, a son of Andrew and Margaret (Baird)
Byers. The father was born in Virginia. 1784, and was the son of Samuel
Byers, who came to Mercer county and settled in Shenango township, in
1796. At that date the father of Mrs. Johnson was aged but twelve
years. The mother was born near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and when a
child went to Liberty township. Mercer county. The father and mother of
James Byers had eight children. The father was a teamster and for
eleven years drove one of the old-time stage coaches. He died when aged
eighty-nine years. James, the son, received a common school education
and early in life became a clerk in a store at Pulaski and followed
clerking for sixteen years. He then spent about three years at driving
cattle over the mountains for a Mr. Moone, after which he clerked in a
store again at Greenfield, in 1862, and at Pulaski. In 1864 he crossed
the great western plains to San Francisco, California, returning by the
way of Panama. In 1866 he began his mercantile career in West
Middlesex. He was married in 1868 to Balinda Marsteller, born November
25, 1834, in Mercer county, Pennsylvania. The children by this union
were: John A., born October 31, 1869; Margaret, born February 15, 1872;
James Chauncy, born December 24, 1878. Politically, Mr. Byers was a
Democrat, while in church connections he was Methodist Episcopal.
Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, pages 613-615
|
|