hitherto largely unattempted or ineffectually prosecuted.  The results of these studies enriched the columns of The Cecil Whig during a period of three years, and attracted wide attention.  In 1881 he published the “History of Cecil County, Md., and the Early Settlements Around the Head of the Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River, with Sketches of Some of the Old Families of Cecil County.”  This work, which embodied the results of the author’s investigations during a period of some years, is one of rare value.  To those who have given but little thought to the subject, it is ever a matter of surprise to learn how closely the history of Cecil and the surrounding counties is interwoven with that of our common country, and how valuable as data of the past are the materials which invited the lover of truth to their discovery.  One can scarcely estimate the laborious research involved in the task of gathering the component parts of a history which stretched over a period of nearly two hundred and seventy-five years.  Old volumes, musty records, masses of court documents, correspondence (official and otherwise), previous historical attempts, personal knowledge, tradition and personal interviews, were all laid under contribution by the author, and served as sources of his authority.  These he has woven together with such judgment in selection, skill in arrangement and force of style and diction, that just as “Gray’s Elegy” alone has placed him in the front rank of poets, so this one work has given the author a high and permanent place among the historians of our country.  The work attempted is so well done, and withal so accurate and reliable as one of reference and authority, that in recognition of its merits Mr. Johnston has been elected a member of the Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Wisconsin.

On January 1, 1883, he became local editor of The Cecil Democrat, and was in such capacity connected with that newspaper for three years and a half.

Early in life Mr. Johnston was a pupil of David Scott (of James), who then taught a school in the Fourth district of Cecil county, and whose sister, Miss Hannah F. Scott, he subsequently married.  The scholar being advanced in studies beyond the other pupils of the school, naturally a close intimacy was formed between him and his teacher.  This afterwards deepened into a friendship which continued without interruption until Mr. Scott’s death, and was the means of creating in Mr. Johnston an ardent love of poetry.  Since 1851 he has written a number of poems, some of which have appeared in print.  These have been so well received by the public that the author, in deference to the wishes of some of his friends, has ventured to include the following rhymes in this work: 

HERE AND HEREAFTER.

Sad echoes of unequal strife,
  Go sighing through the aftermath,
  That skirts the dark uncertain path,
That leads me to the close of life;—­
And years ago dark shadows fell
  Athwart the amber sky of youth,
  Blighting the bloom of hope and truth,
That erst had blossom’d all too well.