Bios: Thomas & Martha Beatty Johnson, 1770s: Antrim Twp, then Cumberland Co, PA

 This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Cheryl Hemmingway
  chemingw@iNet.net

USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file within by non-commercial
               individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all
               notices and submitter information is included. Any other
               use, including copying files to other sites requires
               permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to
               any other sites. We encourage links to the state and
               county table of contents.

_________________________________________________________________


>From "Pennsylvania Women During the Revolution":  Description: An index to
heads of households in the state of Pennsylvania for the 1790 Census year.
Contains surnames and given names of over 72,000 heads of households and a
statistical breakdown of additional family members for the counties of
Allegheny, Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware,
Fayette, Franklin, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Luzerne, Mifflin, Montgomery,
Northampton, Northumberland, Philadelphia, Washington, Westmoreland, and
York.Bibliography: Egle, William Henry. Some Pennsylvania Women during the
War of the Revolution. Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1898.

Martha Beatty, daughter of James Beatty, was born in Antrim township,
Cumberland county, Pa., May 21, 1748.  Her parents were emigrants from the
Province of Ulster, Ireland, and were the first settlers in that locality,
some three miles south of the present town of Greencastle.  The daughter was
the youngest of a large family of children, grew up to be a woman of
education and refinement, and about the year 1770 married Thomas Johnston,
the son of James Johnston, an intelligent farmer, also an early settler in
the neighborhood.

Thomas Johnston was brought up on his father's farm in Antrim. At the close
of the French-Indian war, which harassed that locality for so many years,
Thomas was sent by his father to Philadelphia, where he was educated at the
Academy in that city.  Returning to his home he was given a portion of a
tract of land upon which his father had originally settled; and here we
find him as a sturdy farmer on the frontiers when the news of the battle of
Lexington spread through the Cumberland Valley.  Brought up from infancy to
the clash of arms, Mr. Johnston enlisted in the patriot army as an
associator.  In 1776 he was commissioned an ensign in the Flying Camp, and
January 21, 1777, first lieutenant in the State regiment commanded by
Colonel John Bull, afterwards Colonel Walter Stewart's, and subsequently in
the re-arrangement of the Line, transferred to the Thirteenth Pennsylvania.
At the close of the war he was commissioned a colonel in the militia.  He
was a gentleman of dignified manners, very hospitable and a representative
man of the Cumberland Valley.

Of Mrs. Johnston, during those troublous times, we have little information.
It relates chiefly to her domestic life, and yet much of that life is but
the story of the vast majority of frontier dames-so different, alas, from
those who "sow not nor do they reap"Ñbut philanthropic and patriotic women,
who, although dwelling on the rugged edge of civilization were living
examples for the ages to come.  Such a one was Mrs. Johnston, generous,
honorable, self-sacrificing, and withal a woman of amiability and in whose
veins coursed the best blood of the defenders of Londonderry in 1689.  She
was of dignified bearing, and yet of sweet and amiable disposition, loved
and beloved by all who knew her.  She died August 12, 1811, her husband,
Colonel Johnston, surviving her until the 3d of December, 1819, at the age
of seventy-four.  Both lie inferred in the Johnston burying ground, near
Shady Grove, in a secluded spot some distance from the road.  In the same
enclosure is buried Dr. Robert Johnston, a surgeon of the Army of the
Declaration, brother of Colonel Thomas, and an esteemed friend of General
Washington.