Bio: John Johnston :Pittsfield, Merrimack Co, New Hampshire

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Submitted by: Rick Giirtman  rickman@worldpath.net
Date: March 17, 2001
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From the Book
'History of Pittsfield, N. H. in the Rebellion'
by H. L. Robinson, published 1893


JOHN JOHNSTON

was born in 1798. He came to Pittsfield while quite a young man, for I have
often heard him relate that when the first cotton-factory was being built,
he left his shoe-shop one evening in the summer and visited the yard where
the work had been going on through the day. While looking around he was
approached by a stranger, who enquired if he wanted any more help.

"What can you do?" Mr. Johnston asked.
" I am a broad-ax man, " was the reply.

" Very well, " said Mr. Johnston : " you can go to work to morrow morning on
that log over there."

The next afternoon the foreman discovered that he had an extra hand, and
asked him how he came there.

" The boss hired me last evening, " was the reply.
"No, I did not," said the foreman,

" I know vou didn't, ye blackguard, it was the boss himself. "

The foreman afterwards said that this was the best ax man he ever saw.

Mr. Johnston was the last man to hold the office of tithing-man in this
town. It was the duty of this officer to keep the boys quiet and the old men
awake in church on Sunday. His badge of office was a long pole with a string
attached to a ball. If the boys in the gallery got noisy a prod with the
pole made them put on a sober face. If the old men got drowsy when Parson
Sargent had reached his seventeenthly, then bump would go the ball on the
bald pate of the hearer, and he would be wide awake instantly.

Another duty of the tithing-man was "to see that no one went abroad on
Sunday, except to or from meeting or on an errand of mercy." One Sabbath Mr.
Johnston hailed a stranger and asked him where he was going.

" None of your business," was the reply, as the traveller put spurs to his
horse and galloped away. Mr. Johnston thought the matter over, and finally
concluding that it was none of his business, resigned his office, which was
never again filled.

In 1836, Mr. Johnston married Miss Lydia Pickering of Barnstead, and
immediately commenced housekeeping in this town and ever after lived here.
He had two children, a son and daughter, living when he enlisted October 2,
1862.

It was his intention to go as a nurse in the hospital, a position for which
he was peculiarly adapted, and the most of his service was confined to this
branch. When the army under General Banks advanced on Port Hudson he
remained at Camp Parapet, and for a long time had charge of one of the wards
of a hospital there. He rejoined his regiment, however, before they returned
home, and was mustered out of service August 13, 1863, at Concord.

He died in Pittsfield, November 14, 1877.