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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Educational, Civic and Social Development
--
Prepared Under the Editorial Supervision of
Dr. Benjamin F. Prince
President Clark County Historical Society
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Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors
--
Volumes 2
--
Published by
The American Historical Society
Chicago and New York
1922
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FRANK C. JOHNSON.
Prominent among the business men of the present at
Springfield, one who has succeeded his father as an
important factor in manufacturing circles is Frank C.
Johnson, president of the American Seeding Machine
Company. Mr. Johnson was born at Springfield,
Nov. 10, 1866, a son of Robert Johnson, and
after attending the local public schools enrolled as a
student at the Kenyon Collegiate Preparatory School.
Subsequently he pursued a course at Phillips-Andover, and
then returned to Springfield, where in 1887 he associated
himself permanently with the American Seeding Machine
Company. He has filled at different times practically
all of the various official positions, and since Sept. 19,
1920, has occupied the office of president. Under his
direction this has become one of the leading enterprises in
its line in the country, and Mr. Johnson
occupies a well-merited position among the leading business
men of his community. He has always shown a
commendable interest in civic affairs, and has contributed
of his time and means in the forwarding of those movements
which have been constructive in character and worthy in aim.
Likewise, he has aided education, charity and religion.
Mr. Johnson is primarily a business man, but
is not adverse to the companionship of his fellows and holds
membership in the leading Springfield clubs, in addition to
being a Mason of high standing.
In 1891 Mr. Johnson was united in marriage at
Springfield with Miss Louise Jefferies, a member of a
well-known family of this city, and to this union there have
been born two children: Elizabeth, who married
Robert Cartmell, and Margaret, who married
Harold Prout.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 138 |
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ROBERT JOHNSON
was one of
those strong, capable, ingenious men who, a half a century
ago, through participation in manufacturing activities,
assisted in making the City of Springfield famous. he
was a contemporary of the leading industrial captains of the
’70s and ’80s, and was associated with them in the
promulgation and advancement of business concerns which
brought the city prestige and prosperity and which caused
its name to be known all over the country because of its
products.
Mr. Johnson was born Jan. 20, 1832, in Clark
County, Ohio, a son of James Johnson, a native of
County Donegal, Ireland, of Scotch ancestry. James
Johnson married in Ireland Helen Johnston,
and in 1824 the family immigrated to the United States,
buying a farm a few miles south of Springfield, in Clark
County, where James Johnson was engaged in
agricultural pursuits until his death in 1872.
Robert Johnson was the the fifth in a family of
eight children. From early boyhood until the close of
his life he was an exceptionally hard worker. He grew
up as a farm boy, and his educational training was limited
to a few months yearly in the neighboring district schools.
In the spring of 1849 he came to Springfield, where, after
serving an apprenticeship at the carpenter’s and joiner’s
trade, for which he was paid $40 the first year and $62 the
second year, he began working at the trade. Before he
had attained his majority he had built, unaided, during his
spare time, a double flight of continuous rail stairs, the
first of their kind in Springfield, and after this for a
number of years was associated with his brother, James
Johnson, in contracting and building. In 1865
he went to the Pennsylvania oil fields, and there,
associated with others, spent two years in oil production,
but in 1867 returned to Springfield, where he joined Amos
Whitely, W. W. Wilson, J. W. Taylor,
Walter Craig and others in the organization of
the Champion Machine Company, which was formed for extending
the business of the manufacture of Champion reapers and
mowers that were then being manufactured by the firm of
Whitely, Fassler & Kelly. From this
time for fifteen years Mr. Johnson held the
office of secretary and superintendent of the company.
In 1873 the Champion Malleable Iron Company was created for
the manufacture of malleable iron used in the products of
the Champion Machine Company, of Whitely, Fassler
& Kelly and of Warder, Mitchell &
Company, and of this new company Mr. Johnson
became secretary and a director. In 1874 the three
companies named above organized the Bar and Knife Company
for the purpose of manufacturing cutter bars, knives and
sections, and of this concern Mr. Johnson was
also made secretary and a director. In 1881 he severed
his connections with these concerns and built the Johnson
Block on Main Street, and in 1883 became vice president of
Mast, Foos & Company, serving as such for
fourteen years. In November, 1883, with E. L.
Buchwalter, C. E. Patric, Richard H. Rodgers,
Charles S. Kay and others, he bought out Thomas,
Ludlow & Rodgers and organized the Superior
Drill Company, which during subsequent years has had an
important bearing on the commercial history of Springfield.
During the remainder of his life Mr. Johnson
was first vice president of this corporation. With its
wonderful growth and prosperity the Superior Drill Company
absorbed the Champion Machine Company, and has become known
throughout the United States, particularly as a great
manufacturer of specialized farm machinery. Mr.
Johnson was also an official of the Hoppes
Manufacturing Company, the Springfield Coal and Ice Company,
the Foos Gas Engine Company, the Springfield National
Bank and numerous other business and financial enterprises
of Springfield. He was a Methodist in church belief,
in politics a republican, and was an incorporator of the
Methodist Home for the Aged at Yellow Springs, in all ways
standing for those things contributing to the real welfare
of the community.
To Mr. Johnson’s marriage with Adelaide T.
Humphreys there were born six children: Effie,
who married K. M. Burton; Nellie, who married
Randolph Coleman; Frank C.; Clara, who
married A. M. McKnight; Jessie, who married
Luther L. Buchwalter, and Benjamin P.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 139 |
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FLOYD A. JOHNSTON.
A useful life crowded with honorable activity has been the
choice of one of Springfield’s leading professional men,
Floyd A. Johnston, United States commissioner, who
occupies a prominent place as a member of the Clark County
bar. This place he has won through intelligent
observation, persistent study and close application,
supplementing a natural talent that led to his choice of a
future career while still a youth following the plow on his
father’s farm.
Floyd A. Johnston was born in Madison County,
Ohio, Sept., 15, 1875, and is the son of Henry B. and
Emma (Trond) Johnston, whose family consisted of two
children. Henry B. Johnston has followed
farming practically all his life, and is yet engaged in that
occupation in Madison County. It was on the home farm
there that Floyd A. Johnston grew to manhood.
In boyhood he attended the district schools and later became
a student in the Ohio Northern University at Ada, and from
this institution received the degrees of B. S. and LL. B.,
and was admitted to the bar in December, 1901.
Mr. Johnston came to Springfield in April, 1902,
and opened an office for the practice of his profession.
He was practically unknown and had to begin at the bottom
and depend upon his own efforts. Perhaps one of the
earliest convictions forced upon young professional men,
especially in the law, is that there are no “short cuts” to
success, and for some years, despite his thorough knowledge
of the law, professional opportunity and consequent rewards
were discouragingly slow to Mr. Johnston.
Gradually, however, he made solid progress and his interests
widened, his legal successes in a general practice bringing
him into the limelight, and today he occupies a position of
definite importance in his profession. Mr.
Johnston deprecates the possession of unusual legal
ability, explaining that close study and conscientious
application have been the elements in his success, but his
many friends and admirers maintain that if, in the future,
public honors absorb all of his time and attention, the
Springfield bar will have lost one of its most gifted
members. In January, 1920, Mr. Johnston
was made a United States commissioner, and is serving as
such at the present time. He is active in all that
concerns the welfare of Springfield, and is a member of the
board of sinking fund trustees for the city.
Mr. Johnston married June 14, 1901, Miss
Mabel C. Core, of Newton Falls, Ohio, and they have two
children: Myra E. and Robert F. Mr.
Johnston and his family belong to the Methodist
Episcopal Church. In political life he is a democrat.
Professionally he is a member of the American, state and
county bar associations, and fraternally is a thirty second
degree Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 27 |
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CLEMENT L.
JONES, M.D., has practiced medicine in
Springfield since 1910, and is one of the busy professional
men of the city. He served for a few months as a captain in
the Medical Corps during the great war, but without
exception has devoted his time and talents fully to his
private practice in internal medicine in Springfield.
Doctor Jones was born at Winchester,
Indiana, April 29, 1876, son of Levi M. and Mary
(Williams) Jones. His parents were born in Champaign
County, Ohio, and both are now past fourscore years and
living at Jamestown.
Clement L. Jones is the son of a physician, and
he early made choice of the same vocation as his permanent
career. He acquired his higher education in Washington and
Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, and graduated in medicine
from Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore in 1903. After
some further training and experience in the Mount Carmel
Hospital at Columbus, where he was pathologist to the
hospital, he located at Springfield in 1910, and for a
number of years has had his offices in the Fairbanks
Building. Doctor Jones is a member of the
Clark County, Ohio State and American Medical Associations.
Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks and is a Mason and Shriner. He
belongs to the First Lutheran Church, and is a republican in
politics.
March 3, 1917, Mr. Jones married Miss
Hazel Laybourne, a native of Springfield. They have one
daughter, Martha, born December 11, 1918.
Doctor Jones was commissioned Captain in
the Medical Corps and entered that service September 1,
1918. He was ordered overseas, but the order was revoked
while he was at Hoboken, where he was when the Armistice was
signed. He received his honorable discharge from the service
February 20, 1919.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark
County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 422 -
Transcribed for Ohio Genealogy Express by Cathy Portz |
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