Greetings. This Web page has pointers to various historical family pictures and other information of interest to the Johnstons and Legenzas, and their relations.

Family Pictures

William I. Johnston and family, ca. 1890

Walter I. Johnston and his plow horses, ca. 1910

Uncle Willie and Aunt Lizie Hazelton

A "tandem" John Deere Model 70 tractor.

100 years of Johnston farming power.

North Ritchie, Wesley Twp., Will Co., Ill.

Harold and Margaret Charter

Yancy Davis Redmon and Edgar P. Redmon


(The high resolution images are all JPEG coded, and most to them are full-screen size, so it may take a few minutes to load these pages.
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image compression.)
 

Family History

Johnston

Current draft of  "John Johnston and Mary Campbell of

Muirkirk, Ayrshire, Scotland: Their Family and Descendants" (PDF format, whole document, 21 MBy.)

The document broken down by chapter. Also PDF.

Ch 1-2
Ch 3
Ch 4
Ch 5
Ch 6
Ch 7

Plot map of Wesley Township, Will Co., Ill., ca. 1910 (PDF, 1 MBy)

(GIF image of the map, 2.6 MBy.)
The small lots along the streams and rivers are not sub-divisions, but rather wood lots. Pioneer families in particular had these small parcels of wooded land to supply firewood, fence posts, etc. The area know as "Beckwith Woods" was a wood lot in the south-eastern corner of Wesley Twp.  (right under the "W" of the "W. H. Warner" plot label) belonging to George Beckwith. In the 1920s the place was a favorite picnic area for Laura Johnston and her children, Lester, Margaret, and Francis. The area is now part of the Kankakee River State Park.

George M. Beckwith  came to Ill. in 1817, when Chicago was still Fort Dearborn, and when settlers and the local Winnebago Indians were still fighting. Mary Almira "Minnie" Johnston, daughter of William I. Johnston married George M.'s grandson, George. The attached article about the Beckwith settlers was in Laura Johnston's collection.

Redmon and Sowder

(Comments of William Johnston)

Summary of the Redmon and Sowder family trees (GIF, for Web viewing.)
(PDF for printing.)
This family tree is a summary of information from my records and those of Dennis Sullivan -  http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~dsulliva/irish.html .

Most of these folks lived in and around Floyd Co., Virginia. This is relatively isolated rural area, and the people living there in the mid-19th century probably made up a fairly tight-knit community. This is reflected in the many cross linkages  that can be seen in the tree (sets of brothers marrying sets of sisters, cousins marrying, etc.).

It is also the case that most of the men of what is labeled the 5th generation fought in Lee's Army, and a number of them were killed. Two of my four maternal great great grandfathers - Jacob Sowder and John Redmon - were Civil War casualties. (My paternal great grandfather William Johnston fought in the Union Army. He was wounded three times, the last time resulting in long-term hospitalization and discharge form the Army.)


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