Autobiography of Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston

My father, Malcolm Johnston, was fond of talking with his children about the antecedents of his family. Since his death I have often regretted that I did not listen with more attentiveness. On his father's side he could not go farther back than to his grandfather, Rev. Thomas Johnston, who, early in the last century, emigrating from Scotland, came first to the State of Pennsylvania - what county I can not now say. He had already taken orders in the English Church. Some time after his coming he intermarried with Sallie Adamson, who came of the family of a gentleman who afterwards was well known in the early history of Charlotte County, Virginia, Colonel Thomas Bouldin. In this journeying southward he at first went no farther than Prince George County, Maryland, and for some years was rector of a parish therein. Subsequently Colonel Bouldin after becoming settled in Virginia, removed him thither, where he was settled on a piece of ground named "The Glebe," in the parish of Cornwall, County of Charlotte. Among his children the eldest was William, who, after serving in the War of Independence, at its end removed, with his family, in the year 1799, to Hancock County, Georgia, settling on a plantation four miles west of the village of Powelton. My father, Malcolm, who was the younger of the two sons of their parents, was then eleven years old, having been born in Charlotte County in 1788. William Johnston's wife was Rebecca Mosely, whose mother was Amy Goode, whose mother was Amy Greene, all of Charlotte County. My mother was Catherine Davenport. Her father, John Davenport (whose mother was a Hancock), was killed at the battle of Guilford Court House. One of his ancesters, on immigrating to this country, settled in Connecticut. Whether or not he was the same who founded the city of New Haven I know not. He resided in, and probably was a native of, the same county of Charlotte, wherein he intermarried with Lucy Barksdale. Some years after the death of my maternal grandfather his widow was married to Henry Burnley, who, in the year 1789, removed to the County of Warren, on the border of Hancock, State of Georgia. As it seems to me now, my childhood was unmixedly happy in spite of my being throughout of weakly health of body, and so continued until I was fifteen years old. The living at our house was mingled of strictest discipline with affectionateness to whose tenderness there seemed to be no bounds. We children were an ardent set, and our parents punished our oft offendings with switches pulled from the peach tree. But afterwards we were not subjected to everlasting talkings about it. Instead, a reasonably healthy flagellation satisfied every demand, and we began with restored love and confidence upon a new career. Like other children who are not strong enough to be much out of doors, and who must be occupied with something within, I learned early to read. I have no recollection of a time, except one, when I could not read, and I remember how my father was chagrined in that case. It was with me then as it has been ever since - to apprehend quickly and as quickly forget.