HON. EDWARD JOHNSTONE

JOHNSTONE, RICHARDS

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 3/6/2020 at 21:24:52

HON. EDWARD JOHNSTONE - The public life of this well known gentleman is almost contemporary with the settlement of Iowa. At least before Iowa was a State, or even a Territory separated from Wisconsin, he began his career at the capital, then in Burlington, and for more than the third of a century he has been intimately identified with the progress of the country. He has not only been a witness of its rapid growth, from its incipiency, till it has taken rank among the great States of the Mississippi Valley, but a prominent actor in its affairs; and perhaps few men have done more than the subject of this sketch to shape the destiny and future growth of the State. Of his influence in his own immediate county and city, we have no occasion here to speak, for his talents and character are well known, and his qualities displayed in social life are not less familiar to his fellow citizens.

Edward Johnstone was born in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania, on the 4th of July, 1815. He studied law in Greensburgh, in that county, and in the summer of 1737, moved West. He first resided at Mineral Point, and in the fall of that ear went to Burlington, and acted as clerk of the Legislature of Wisconsin Territory, which then held its sessions in that place.

During the session of 1837-8, the Legislature appointed three commissioners to collect testimony with regard to the titles to the half-breed lands, and report the same to the district court of which number Mr. Johnstone was one. This duty called him to Montrose in the spring of 1838, where he remained till January, 1839. He then removed to Fort Madison, and having been employed by the St. Louis claimants of half-breed lands, instituted proceedings, in conjunction with General Hugh T. Reid, for the division of said lands, under the general partition laws of the State, which resulted in the “Decree Title,” by which the lands are now held.

In the summer if 1839, Mr. Johnstone was elected to the Legislature, and for two successive terms, regular and special, was speaker of the House. In1840 he was elected to the Council. He was United States District Attorney for the Judicial District of Iowa, under the administration of President Polk.

In 1851 he was elected Judge of the County Court of Lee County, and served in that capacity four years. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1857, on the same ticket with Colonel William Patterson, and took a prominent part in the deliberations of that body.

After the expiration of his term of office as Judge of the County Court, he went into banking business, in the firm of McMurphy, Johnstone & Bacon. Which was subsequently changed to Johnstone & Bacon.

In September, 1868, he removed to Keokuk, and took charge, as cashier, of the Keokuk Savings Bank, in which position he still remains.

As a financier, Judge Johnstone possesses a high order of talents, as his success in banking operations for the last twenty years abundantly shows. He is careful and accurate in his judgment, and has a habit of looking at a subject thoroughly and on all sides, which makes him a sound and reliable manager in money matters.

As a lawyer and statesman he has displayed more than ordinary ability. He has never been what may be termed an “off hand” speaker, either in court or in the Legislature. His ideal of what a speech should be towered too far above the common level, and he was naturally too cautious to allow himself to rush into speech-making unprepared. Hence, his speeches always evinced thorough preparation, and a comprehensive knowledge of his subject, and while they were well grounded in strong and forcible logic, often blazed and sparkled with rhetorical flights of eloquence.

Being a man of literary culture and extensive reading, Mr. Johnstone naturally sought to make these resources available in his profession. Hence his speeches and pleas were often garnished with gems of imagination, and quotations from the poets. The speaker who can use these resources, together with a thorough mastery of the logical bearings of his subject, has a double power over his hearers, for he carries captive the sentiment and the imagination, as well as the reasoning powers. So it was with Mr. Johnstone; his strong reasoning, reinforced by his rhetorical appeals, often moved populace and jury in behalf of his clients.

Judge Johnstone is a man of stalwart proportions, intellectually and physically. He stands six feet four inches high, and weights two hundred and fifty pounds - a weight from which he has not varied ten pounds in the last twenty years. His stature and appearance would single him out among a thousand of as a man of mark - such an one as the early civilizations have always exalted to the rank of chief. We do not mean by this that Judge Johnstone is lacking, intellectually or socially, in any of those qualifications which fit a man for honor in the highest circles of society; on the contrary, he is possessed of a cultivated and vigorous intellect, a rich fund of humor, a chastened imagination, and a genial flow of spirits, which make him a desirable companion for the most socially and intellectually inclined. In manners and conversation he is one of the most affable and friendly of men, carrying in his beaming countenance the insignia of a warm and genial nature.

He is what may be called a good writer, clear, forcible, and fluent, with enough of imagination to make his writings always readable and interesting. In his earlier days he carried off the palm for a prize poem in St. Louis.

The faculty of Judge Johnstone for making and holding friends, is one of his most remarkable characteristics. This is shown by the friendship of the people for him, notwithstanding the litigations involving their interests, in which he has so long and often been engaged. Through all the complications and difficulties respecting the half-breed lands, in which he took from the first a leading part, he seems never to have incurred the ill-will of the people; but, on the contrary, pursued such a course as to preserve their friendship, and make them warm supporters of him at the polls. This is remarkable when we consider how much of his public life was taken up with these difficulties, and how prominent a part he took in them throughout. It shows that the people have given him credit for those motives of justice and conciliation which have evidently marked his course as a public man.

Judge Johnstone was married in April, 1849, in St. Louis County, Missouri, to Miss Elizabeth V. Richards, by whom he has four children living, three sons and one daughter.

Source:
Illustrated Historical ATLAS of Lee County, IOWA
A. T. Andreas
Chicago, ILL.
1874

Transcription by Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer