Josiah Stoddard Johnston, Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Gaytha Carver Thompson

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SOME PROMINENT RAPIDES NAMES OF LONG AGO
by DR. G. M. G. STAFFORD
Source: Melrose Collection #66; NSU Archives; Natchitoches, LA.
Louisiana State Courier January 1985
Compiled by: Annette Carpenter Womack, editor
Typed by: 

Probably of all the Rapides pioneers none shed more honor and glory upon his
name than did Josiah Stoddard Johnston.  He was the eldest son of Dr. John
Johnston and his wife, Mary Stoddard, and was born in Salisbury, Conn., on
November 24, 1784.  He was carried to Washington, Mason county, Kentucky, in
1788, by his parents where he spent his boyhood and early manhood.  He was
first sent to New Haven, Conn. To school, but completed his education at
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.  After this he studied law with the
famous George Nicholas.  In 1805 he emigrated to the territory of Louisiana at
the age of 21.  He settled at Alexandria, in Rapides parish, which was then a
frontier village.

He was elected to the first Territorial Legislature and served in that body
until 1812, when Louisiana was admitted into the Union.  He then served as
judge in Rapides parish from 1812 to 1821.  He married, in 1814, Miss Eliza
Sibley, daughter of Dr. John Sibley, of Natchitoches.  Her brother, Dr. Robert
H. Sibley, was a prominent physician in Rapides and married Mary Wells, a
daughter of Samuel Levi Wells.

Judge Johnston's two full brothers, Darius and Orramel, settled in Rapides, as
also did two of his half brothers, John Harris and Lucius.  All became men of
distinction here.  Their graves may be seen in the Rapides cemetery in
Pineville.  Judge Johnston has an only son, William Stoddard Johnston, who
also became district judge here.  He died in the prime of life and was buried
in the Rapides cemetery.

In 1819 Albert Sidney Johnston, afterwards a general in the Confederate States
Army, who was the youngest of Judge Johnston's half brothers, visited his
distinguished brother in Rapides and spent an entire winter with him.

When the British invaded Louisiana in 1815 Judge Johnston raised and equipped
a regiment in Central Louisiana and went at its head to the aid of General
Jackson in New Orleans.

In 1821 he was elected to the seventeenth Congress and in 1823 to the U. S.
Senate.  He was reelected in 1825 and in 1831.  On May 19, 1833, while en
route to Natchitoches on the steamer Lioness, he met with a sudden death and
was interred in a watery grave.  His remains still lie somewhere at the bottom
of Red River.  There was a quantity of gunpowder on the steamer which became
ignited and caused a terrific explosion, sinking the boat.

Two other distinguished citizens of Louisiana were on the Liones at the time,
viz: Governor Edward Douglas White and Judge Henry Boyce.  Governor White was
the father of Chief Justice White of the U. S. Supreme Court.  Judge Boyce was
judge of the local district court for fifteen years and afterwards U. S.
district judge.

W. H. Sparks, in his "Memoirs of Fifty Years." says that Governor White was
severely burned and hurled into the river by the explosion, and that the
ladies' cabin was blown off for the remainder of the boat and thrown intact
upon the water and floated safely.  When the smoke cleared away one of the
ladies saw the governor swimming near the wreck.  He was blinded by the burns
he had received and could not see in what direction to go.  The ladies were in
their night clothes and the one who saw the governor in the water snatched
from her person her robe de chambre and, throwing one end to him, called to
him to reach for it, and by this means pulled him to the wreck and with the
aid of the others lifted him on it.

Judge Boyce was not badly injured.  He had just purchased a very valuable
negro in New Orleans and when the explosion came, finding that the poor
creature could not swim and being a very powerful man himself, he took him on
his back and swam ashore with him.