Johnston, William F.

Born: 1808-11-29 Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Died: 1872-10-25 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

William F. Johnston was a Pennsylvania attorney and politician. He received a limited common school education, but supplemented his rudimentary training with voracious reading. He read law and received admittance to the Pennsylvania bar in May 1829. Shortly thereafter he moved to Armstrong County, where he commenced the practice of law. He soon became one of the leading attorneys in the county, and received appointment as district attorney, a position he held until 1832. In April 1832, Johnston married Mary Monteith, a union that produced seven children. He represented Armstrong County in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1841, and in 1847, he won election to the Pennsylvania Senate from a district composed of the counties of Armstrong, Indiana, Cambria, and Clearfield. Johnston won election as speaker of the Senate, and in July 1848, he assumed the office of governor after the resignation of Governor Francis R. Shunk. In the general election of 1848, Johnston secured the governor's chair as a Whig, defeating his Democratic challenger by a scant 297 votes. During his term in office, Johnston improved the fiscal condition of the state, paying the interest on the state debt and reducing expenditure. Johnston supported the Compromise of 1850, and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, though he encouraged the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress to revise the law. The Whigs re-nominated Johnston for governor in 1851, but he lost in a close race with Democrat William Bigler. Leaving office in January 1852, Johnston moved to Pittsburgh and resumed practicing law. In 1860, he was an attorney in Pittsburgh and owned real estate valued at $110,000 and had a personal estate of $2,000.

Gravestone, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, PA; William C. Armor, Lives of the Governors of Pennsylvania, With the Incidental History of the State, from 1609 to 1872 (Philadelphia: James K. Simon, 1872), 403-12; William H. Egle, An Illustrated History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg: De Witt C. Goodrich, 1876), 254; John L. Moore, Jon P. Preimesberger, and David R. Tarr, eds., Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2001), 2:1460; Robert Walter Smith, History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: Waterman, Watkins, 1883), 35; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 4, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA, 432; John M. Gresham, comp. and ed., Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John M. Gresham, 1890), 102.