Hancock County GaArchives Obituaries.....Johnston, Richard Malcolm October 1898
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The Lima News (Ohio), Oct. 28, 1898
Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston, the distinguished educator and novelist, who 
recently closed his earthly career in the Maryland General Hospital at 
Baltimore, will long leave behind him the reputation of being one of the most 
skilful painters of negro character in the history of American letters.
     Colonel Johnson was born in Hancock county, Georgia, on March 8, 1822. 
Through his mother, Catherine Davenport, a native of Virginia, he is descended 
from the distinguished English family of that name who were among the early 
settlers of Connecticut. On his father's side Mr. Johnston is descended from 
Rev. Thomas Johnston, a clergyman of the Church of England who came from 
Scotland and settled in Virginia. He was the great-grandfather of the novelist. 
In 1779 William Johnston settled in Georgia and from him the Georgia branch of 
the family sprung.
     Colonel Johnston's early life was spent in Georgia. There he was prepared 
for college and he learned his classics from Mercer college, from which he 
graduated in 1841. He taught for a time, and then became a lawyer. In 1844 he 
married Miss Frances Mansfield, who was not yet 16 years old. He became the 
professor of literature at the Georgia State University and afterward opened a 
school of his own. Next he removed to Maryland and taught until his success as 
a describer of ante-bellum negro character determined his life work as that of 
letters. The first stories that were written by Colonel Johnston were not 
intended for publication but were worked out merely for his own 
fratification. "Dukesborough Tales" has few equals in its line and no superior 
in all the wide range of letters devoted to description of the southern negro. 
He published many of his stories under the pen name of Philemon Perch in the 
Southern Magazine. For these early efforts he received no pay whatever, but 
this was made up by the goodly sums his stores brought him afterward. 
Besides "Dukesborough Tales" he produced "Mr Neelus' 
Peeler's Conditions," "Studies, Literary and Social," a "History of English 
Literature" and a "Life of Alexander Stevens."

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