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biography
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Johnston, Edward P., principal of the seventh ward school, Allegheny, was
born in Brownsville, Fayette county, Penna. His parents were William H
Johnston and Eliza Brown Johnston, who descended from pioneer settlers of
that historic town, coming from the north of Ireland.
W H Johnston was a successful building contractor and erected many
prominet buildings in Washington and Fayette counties. He was an ardent
supporter of all educational movements, and from the labor of his own
hands provided the means that graduated from higher institutions of
learning five sons and two daughters. He was a man six feet three inches
tall, and of robust physical and mental strength. He was prominent for
many years in the politics of his town and county, and was president of
the council, and a director of the Monongahela bank at the time of his
death. He believed in the gospel of hard work, and in times like these
when so many think of work only to avoid it, it is a credit to his family
that they have inherited this virtue as well as the educational
tendencies of their father. He was an Episcopalian and a Mason.
The subject of this sketch recieved his education in the public schools
of Brownsville and the Indiana state normal school, graduating from the
latter in 1879. Since graduating Mr Johnston has been principal of the
schools at Freeport, Brownsville, Pittsburg and Allegheny. He is a man of
positive and mathematical mind, forms his own opinion of men and things,
and advocates them with a sincerity that no one doubts. His school work
is marked by an energy and enthusiasm that always succeeds. He leads his
school and has stimulated the educational sentiment of his district to a
wonderful degree. The seventh ward school employs twenty three teachers
and has enrolled 1,100 pupils.
Mr Johnston married Miss Mary E Fullerton, a successful teacher in
Freeport schools, and to them has been born one child, Eliza Brown
Johnston, a third year student in the Allegheny high school. Mr Johnston
is an Episcopalian and a Mason.
Contributed by Marta Burns.
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