A Narrative History of The People of Iowa with SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY, BUSINESS, ETC. by EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M. Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa Volume IV THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc. Chicago and New York 1931 ROBERT J. JOHNSTON, who died October 30, 1924, was a conspicuous citizen and business man of the City of Humboldt, Iowa, for many years. He was a banker and frequently was elected to public office. His interest in public affairs was completely shared by Mrs. Johnston who as mayor of the City of Humboldt has been given an amount of publicity which makes her one of the interesting women of the nation. She well merits her distinctions. Mrs. Johnston is a remarkable personality, vigorous, practical-minded, dispatches a large amount of business every day and has a horizon of intellectual interests that would be unusual even in a woman whose life had been completely centered in books rather than in practical affairs. The late Robert J. Johnston was a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was born January 13, 1856. His parents, John and Jane (Porter) Johnston, were natives of Pennsylvania and Canada respectively. Robert J. Johnston was a young man when he came west and settled at Humboldt. For a time he was deputy county treasurer, and left that office to take up banking as a career. In 1888 he was made cashier of the Humboldt State Bank of Humboldt, and was closely identified with that institution until he sold his interests in 1917. During the last seven years of his life his time was taken up in looking after his private affairs. Politically he was a staunch Republican. Among other public offices he was mayor and member of the city council and served in the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eight General Assemblies of Iowa. For many years he was a member of the Iowa State Fair Board and served for two years, 1899-1900, as president of the Iowa State Fair Association. Mr. Johnston and Miss Mary H. Stoddard were married at Humboldt in 1888. Mrs. Johnston is a native of Minnesota. Her parents, James G. and Mary (Barr) Stoddard, were pioneers of that state. Her father was a farmer, had a store at Red Wing, Minnesota, and after coming to Humboldt County, Iowa, again located on a farm. He died in 1871 and his widow subsequently married S. H. Brewer. Mrs. Johnston attended school at Humboldt and Fort Dodge. She represents some of the oldest of Colonial New England families, and for many years has been prominent in patriotic organizations. She had five ancestors who were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, three of them by the name of Morgan. She is also a descendant of Elder Brewster of the Mayflower Pilgrims. In the paternal line she is a descendant of John Stoddard, who came from England in 1640 and received a grant of land from Connecticut. Mrs. Johnston for many years has been prominent in both the state and national bodies of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was state regent of Iowa, and treasurer general of the national society (1917-1920). She is also state treasurer of the Society of Colonial Dames, is national treasurer of the Daughters of Runnemede, and is treasurer national of the Daughters of 1812. She is serving as grand treasurer of the Order of the Eastern Star in Iowa. Mrs. Johnston maintains a business office in the Doan Building, where she administers her official responsibilities as mayor and also looks after the Johnston estate. Mrs. Johnston in 1930 was nominated for a third successive term as mayor of Humboldt. Every few days the Iowa press publishes some current comments and anecdotes about the redoubtable mayor of Humboldt, and these newspaper stories, of course, furnish little substantial matter for biography. One of these picture of her as an official and one of many that have been portrayed to the public outside her home community is contained in a two-column article in the Des Moines Register written by a staff writer who describes her appearance as "tall, determined and austere; blue-eyed and gray haired and with a curtness in manner that is more a mannerism than a confirmed attitude. As an official she employs occasionally the masterful methods of a top-sergeant, severe, direct, unequivocal," and then goes on to quote one of the comments of her fellow townsman to the effect that "she bosses us around all our lives, and when we die we have to go to her for a burial permit, for she is secretary of the cemetery association." Debbie Clough Gerischer _http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm_ (http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm) _http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm_ (http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm) _http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/_ (http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/)