Background
Thomas Johnston was born around 1708 in Boston, Massachussets. Johnston has often been confused with an English mezzotint engraver named Johnson who was born in Boston, England and who seems to have engraved a portrait of Increase Mather.
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Thomas Johnston
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Johnston was a self-taught engraver.
Career
Johnston was admitted to the Brattle Street Church, Boston, Massachussets, in 1726. Except for the work he left, for references in contemporary newspapers, and for a few court records of suits against him and the administration of his will, little is known about him. His work which survives consists principally of engravings, and most of these are topographical. His charts, "The Canada River" and "The Kennebec and Sagadahoc Rivers, " are little more than outline maps with an occasional fort or settlement indicated, and the same thing is true of most of his engravings.
In his "Prospect of Yale College, " however, the pictorial enters in, and in his "Battle of Lake George, " beneath a map at the top of the page the English are shown encamped on the lake with the French and Indians attacking them through the woods.
There is a portrait attributed to him in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and another is owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society; while the fact that he was an heraldic painter is attested by a suit over a coat of arms in which his apprentice, John Greenwood, made an affidavit that is in the files of the Massachusetts supreme court under date of March 16, 1749.
In addition to engraving and painting, Johnston was also an organ builder, and an organ of his construction is still in the Old North Church of Boston where a marble tablet commemorates the fact that he made it in 1759. Though neither a painter nor an engraver of great merit, he kept up artistic activity under conditions that were not favorable. That he exerted some influence on painting is shown by the fact that his apprentice, John Greenwood, referred to above, and Johnston's son John both achieved some success as portrait and figure painters.
Johnston died at the age of 59 in Boston of apoplexy on May 8, 1767. He is buried at the King's Chapel Burying Ground near King’s Chapel church in Boston. After his death his real estate was appraised as worth sixty-six pounds, thirteen shillings, and four pence.
His tombstone, in King's Chapel, Boston, contains at present only his name and the year of his death, but in the printed reproduction of it kept by the Massachusetts Historical Society, "Aged 59 Years" is added in handwriting, and appearances make it seem probable that this line on the stone has been obliterated by the weather.
Achievements
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Thomas Johnston's major achievement was in becoming the first engraver who made a historical print in America. He was also the first person who started manufacture of church organs as a regular business in America. An organ of his construction is still in the Old North Church of Boston where a marble tablet commemorates the fact that he made it in 1759. Besides this topographical and pictorial material, Johnston also engraved music for Psalm tunes and the plates for the commissions issued by the Province of Massachusetts during the last eight years of his life.
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Connections
According to court records Thomas Johnston married Rachel Thwing in 1730, and several children are attributed to this union, one of them, Thomas, an organist and japanner, often being confused with his father.
On August 6, 1747, he married Bathsheba Thwing, a cousin of his first wife. By his second marriage he had three sons with one being Samuel Johnston, who was a master mariner that drowned at sea in 1794 on a return trip from the West Indies. Eight of his total of eleven children took on his skills in their careers.
References
- Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Part II, Volume I
- Blodget's Plan of the Battle on the Shores of Lake George, 8 September, 1755
- Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and Inventions in American History by Joseph Nathan Kane (1997-12-01)
- Boston Prints and Printmakers, 1670-1775
- The Conservationist
- Ancestry Of Lawrence Williams (1915)
- Christ Church Salem Street, Boston: Historical Sketches Colonial Period 1723 - 1775.
- Church Music in America, 1620-2000 by John Ogasapian (2007-01-01)
- Narrative and Critical History of America, Volume 6, part 2
- The Organ in New England: An Account of Its Use and Manufacture
