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BIOGRAPHIES

Source:
A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio

An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Educational, Civic and Social Development
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Prepared Under the Editorial Supervision of
Dr. Benjamin F. Prince
President Clark County Historical Society
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Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors
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Volumes 2
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Published by
The American Historical Society
Chicago and New York
1922

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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  FRANK C. JOHNSON. Prominent among the business men of the present at Springfield, one who has succeeded his father as an important factor in manufacturing circles is Frank C. Johnson, president of the American Seeding Machine Company.  Mr. Johnson was born at Springfield, Nov. 10, 1866, a son of Robert Johnson, and after attending the local public schools enrolled as a student at the Kenyon Collegiate Preparatory School.  Subsequently he pursued a course at Phillips-Andover, and then returned to Springfield, where in 1887 he associated himself permanently with the American Seeding Machine Company.  He has filled at different times practically all of the various official positions, and since Sept. 19, 1920, has occupied the office of president.  Under his direction this has become one of the leading enterprises in its line in the country, and Mr. Johnson occupies a well-merited position among the leading business men of his community.  He has always shown a commendable interest in civic affairs, and has contributed of his time and means in the forwarding of those movements which have been constructive in character and worthy in aim.  Likewise, he has aided education, charity and religion.  Mr. Johnson is primarily a business man, but is not adverse to the companionship of his fellows and holds membership in the leading Springfield clubs, in addition to being a Mason of high standing.
     In 1891 Mr. Johnson was united in marriage at Springfield with Miss Louise Jefferies, a member of a well-known family of this city, and to this union there have been born two children: Elizabeth, who married Robert Cartmell, and Margaret, who married Harold Prout.

SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 138
  ROBERT JOHNSON was one of those strong, capable, ingenious men who, a half a century ago, through participation in manufacturing activities, assisted in making the City of Springfield famous.  he was a contemporary of the leading industrial captains of the ’70s and ’80s, and was associated with them in the promulgation and advancement of business concerns which brought the city prestige and prosperity and which caused its name to be known all over the country because of its products.
     Mr. Johnson was born Jan. 20, 1832, in Clark County, Ohio, a son of James Johnson, a native of County Donegal, Ireland, of Scotch ancestry.  James Johnson married in Ireland Helen Johnston, and in 1824 the family immigrated to the United States, buying a farm a few miles south of Springfield, in Clark County, where James Johnson was engaged in agricultural pursuits until his death in 1872.  Robert Johnson was the the fifth in a family of eight children.  From early boyhood until the close of his life he was an exceptionally hard worker.  He grew up as a farm boy, and his educational training was limited to a few months yearly in the neighboring district schools.  In the spring of 1849 he came to Springfield, where, after serving an apprenticeship at the carpenter’s and joiner’s trade, for which he was paid $40 the first year and $62 the second year, he began working at the trade.  Before he had attained his majority he had built, unaided, during his spare time, a double flight of continuous rail stairs, the first of their kind in Springfield, and after this for a number of years was associated with his brother, James Johnson, in contracting and building.  In 1865 he went to the Pennsylvania oil fields, and there, associated with others, spent two years in oil production, but in 1867 returned to Springfield, where he joined Amos Whitely, W. W. Wilson, J. W. Taylor, Walter Craig and others in the organization of the Champion Machine Company, which was formed for extending the business of the manufacture of Champion reapers and mowers that were then being manufactured by the firm of Whitely, Fassler & Kelly.  From this time for fifteen years Mr. Johnson held the office of secretary and superintendent of the company.  In 1873 the Champion Malleable Iron Company was created for the manufacture of malleable iron used in the products of the Champion Machine Company, of Whitely, Fassler & Kelly and of Warder, Mitchell & Company, and of this new company Mr. Johnson became secretary and a director.  In 1874 the three companies named above organized the Bar and Knife Company for the purpose of manufacturing cutter bars, knives and sections, and of this concern Mr. Johnson was also made secretary and a director.  In 1881 he severed his connections with these concerns and built the Johnson Block on Main Street, and in 1883 became vice president of Mast, Foos & Company, serving as such for fourteen years.  In November, 1883, with E. L. Buchwalter, C. E. Patric, Richard H. Rodgers, Charles S. Kay and others, he bought out Thomas, Ludlow & Rodgers and organized the Superior Drill Company, which during subsequent years has had an important bearing on the commercial history of Springfield.  During the remainder of his life Mr. Johnson was first vice president of this corporation.  With its wonderful growth and prosperity the Superior Drill Company absorbed the Champion Machine Company, and has become known throughout the United States, particularly as a great manufacturer of specialized farm machinery.  Mr. Johnson was also an official of the Hoppes Manufacturing Company, the Springfield Coal and Ice Company, the Foos Gas Engine Company, the Springfield National Bank and numerous other business and financial enterprises of Springfield.  He was a Methodist in church belief, in politics a republican, and was an incorporator of the Methodist Home for the Aged at Yellow Springs, in all ways standing for those things contributing to the real welfare of the community.
     To Mr. Johnson’s marriage with Adelaide T. Humphreys there were born six children: Effie, who married K. M. Burton; Nellie, who married Randolph Coleman; Frank C.; Clara, who married A. M. McKnight; Jessie, who married Luther L. Buchwalter, and Benjamin P.

SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 139
  FLOYD A. JOHNSTONA useful life crowded with honorable activity has been the choice of one of Springfield’s leading professional men, Floyd A. Johnston, United States commissioner, who occupies a prominent place as a member of the Clark County bar.  This place he has won through intelligent observation, persistent study and close application, supplementing a natural talent that led to his choice of a future career while still a youth following the plow on his father’s farm.
     Floyd A. Johnston was born in Madison County, Ohio, Sept., 15, 1875, and is the son of Henry B. and Emma (Trond) Johnston, whose family consisted of two children.  Henry B. Johnston has followed farming practically all his life, and is yet engaged in that occupation in Madison County.  It was on the home farm there that Floyd A. Johnston grew to manhood.  In boyhood he attended the district schools and later became a student in the Ohio Northern University at Ada, and from this institution received the degrees of B. S. and LL. B., and was admitted to the bar in December, 1901.
     Mr. Johnston came to Springfield in April, 1902, and opened an office for the practice of his profession.  He was practically unknown and had to begin at the bottom and depend upon his own efforts.  Perhaps one of the earliest convictions forced upon young professional men, especially in the law, is that there are no “short cuts” to success, and for some years, despite his thorough knowledge of the law, professional opportunity and consequent rewards were discouragingly slow to Mr. Johnston.  Gradually, however, he made solid progress and his interests widened, his legal successes in a general practice bringing him into the limelight, and today he occupies a position of definite importance in his profession.  Mr. Johnston deprecates the possession of unusual legal ability, explaining that close study and conscientious application have been the elements in his success, but his many friends and admirers maintain that if, in the future, public honors absorb all of his time and attention, the Springfield bar will have lost one of its most gifted members.  In January, 1920, Mr. Johnston was made a United States commissioner, and is serving as such at the present time.  He is active in all that concerns the welfare of Springfield, and is a member of the board of sinking fund trustees for the city.
     Mr. Johnston married June 14, 1901, Miss Mabel C. Core, of Newton Falls, Ohio, and they have two children: Myra E. and Robert F.  Mr. Johnston and his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church.  In political life he is a democrat.  Professionally he is a member of the American, state and county bar associations, and fraternally is a thirty second
degree Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine.

SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 27
  CLEMENT L. JONES, M.D., has practiced medicine in Springfield since 1910, and is one of the busy professional men of the city. He served for a few months as a captain in the Medical Corps during the great war, but without exception has devoted his time and talents fully to his private practice in internal medicine in Springfield.
     Doctor Jones was born at Winchester, Indiana, April 29, 1876, son of Levi M. and Mary (Williams) Jones. His parents were born in Champaign County, Ohio, and both are now past fourscore years and living at Jamestown.
     Clement L. Jones is the son of a physician, and he early made choice of the same vocation as his permanent career. He acquired his higher education in Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, and graduated in medicine from Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore in 1903. After some further training and experience in the Mount Carmel Hospital at Columbus, where he was pathologist to the hospital, he located at Springfield in 1910, and for a number of years has had his offices in the Fairbanks Building. Doctor Jones is a member of the Clark County, Ohio State and American Medical Associations. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and is a Mason and Shriner. He belongs to the First Lutheran Church, and is a republican in politics.
     March 3, 1917, Mr. Jones married Miss Hazel Laybourne, a native of Springfield. They have one daughter, Martha, born December 11, 1918.
     Doctor Jones was commissioned Captain in the Medical Corps and entered that service September 1, 1918. He was ordered overseas, but the order was revoked while he was at Hoboken, where he was when the Armistice was signed. He received his honorable discharge from the service February 20, 1919.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 422 - Transcribed for Ohio Genealogy Express by Cathy Portz

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