John Johnston

Who was John Johnston?

John Johnston was an Indian agent in the United States Northwest Territory. He was born on 25 March 1775 near Ballyshannon in the North of Ireland. His father was Scottish and his mother was a Huguenot. He left Ireland when he was eleven years old, travelling to America with a priest and a trusted family friend who was also his tutor. When he emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1786, his father, mother, four brothers, and one sister remained in Ireland. They came to America five years after he settled here.

Johnston's career with Native Americans started as a wagoner for General Anthony Wayne's Legion of the United States. He returned to Pennsylvania after the campaign and worked as a law clerk. At age 27, Johnston met Rachel Robinson, who was 16. They eloped to Lancaster, Ohio and were married on 15 July 1802. They had 15 children - the first 4 were the first all-white children to be born at Ft. Wayne. 14 of their 15 children lived into adulthood.

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Johnston as Indian Agent at the new trading agency in Fort Wayne, and by 1809 he was in charge of two Indian Agencies. His primary responsibility was to manage trade so that Indians in the area would not seek trade with the nearby British. Johnston was responsible to the territorial governor, William Henry Harrison, and to the Superintendent of Indian Trade. Almost immediately, however, a rivalry began between Johnston and William Wells, the official interpreter at Fort Wayne. The Miami of Fort Wayne trusted Wells, who had been adopted into their tribe, while U.S. government officials questioned Wells' loyalty and sided with Johnston. Johnston remained at Fort Wayne through a period of growing resentment between the American Indians and the United States, and filed a report summarizing Indian accounts of the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.