William "Bugle Bill" Johnston
He was of Irish blood, but born on the blue waters of old ocean and brought to Ohio a child, and when a young man was a teacher of youth and associated with Lorin Andrews. With Andrews he taught at the Ashland Academy, and when that school was moved to Mansfield and located in the basement rooms of the Congregational church, the building erected previous to the present one on the same site, William Johnston was the assistant of that famous teacher Lorin Andrews. Then it was, as a student, I first made the acquaintance of Mr. Johnston. He was young, unmarried, spare, light-complected, blue eyed, very attractive personage. I knew the lady he afterward made his wife, the daughter of Joseph McComb, a wealthy forehanded farmer on the Jerome Fork of the Mohican. Her brothers, Judson and Albert, were my schoolmates, and with them I have spent many Saturdays and Sundays at their father's home. Mr. Johnston was a true son of Erin, and his pen was as eloquent as his tongue, and his tongue was touched with a flame of fire, sometimes vituperative, dealing in invectives, but for the most time persuasive and pleasant. In his young manhood he was of the Whig school of politics and a great admirer of Henry Clay, and when the presidential battle of 1844 was waged between Clay, of Kentucky, and Polk, of Tennessee, Johnston with an associate published the "Richland Bugle", the blasts of which were very effective for Clay and Frelinghuysen, and against Polk and Dallas. The "Bugle" was conducted with great vigor and blasts and blows were frequent at the SHIELD AND BANNER, and its then editor, John Y. Glessner, which were pleasing to Whigs and very annoying to their opponents. Never prior had the local papers indulged in such warfare, and the fight was on and hot. "Harry of the West" was defeated, and Johnston's heart was sad indeed. Shortly after he moved to Charlotte, Michigan, and for some years there resided. In Michigan he published a newspaper, but with varying fortune, and after considerable of an interval of time returned to Ohio, but without fortune or any accumulation, save his increased family. Then commenced a struggle for existence, and it culminated in his study of the law and entry on its practice. The American party, made up of men of both the Democratic and Whig parties, controlled in part local as well as state affairs, and the blood of the Irishman began to glow into a heat, and he abandoned the Whigs, because forsooth some Whigs were pronounced Native Americans, overlooking the fact that some Democrats were likewise. He was the candidate of the Whigs for Probate Judge against Judge Myers, and defeated by a very large vote, and Johnston landed into the bosom of the Democracy and thence forward his political associations were with those he had ever before most bitterly opposed and bravely fought. He was associated at first in practice with Mr. Purdy, who was exceedingly kind to him, but his new party predilections lead him into business association with Judge Thomas W. Bartley. When he blowed the Bugle in 1844 his articles on and against Mr. Glessner approached the line of libel very closely if not fully so. Day and Smith, who bought the Jeffersonian and resurrected its waning fortunes and christened it anew as the Mansfield Herald, made the fight a vigorous one against Mr. Glessner and the SHIELD, and used the editorial articles copied from the Bugle; and --illegible-- of all things, the republicans of such articles were made the basis of an action on behalf of Mr. Glessner against Day & Smith, and Johnston was the attorney and advocate of Mr. Glessner. If Mr. Glessner's good name was assaulted, the Bugle blasted it, and the Herald only resounded the Bugle notes. The Bugle was not called to account, but the Herald was required to respond and defend the libel action. Right thinking men could now draw the line, and Mr. Johnston lost many friends, and deserved to lose them. But time moved on. The Civil War was waging, and in the dark day of 1862 a gallant soldier, General James H. Goodman, of Marion County, at the front, was nominated for Congress by the Union party, and Wm. Johnston received the nomination of his party, and Johnston won, and so served a term in the Congress of the United States. His service was not marked by any brilliancy. The brilliant, daring and developing young Whig of 1844 had become a Congressman it is true, but the fires of his youth were gone, the sentiments which had called forth his power and awakened and aroused his heart no longer controlled him and at the end of his Congressional career he returned home, and shortly thereafter went into a decline and died. The wound given his pride when the friends of his young manhood made reflection, on foreign born peoples made a grievous sore, and he lost the elasticity of the years of '40 and '44 and '48, and yet it should be remembered that he was possessed of gifts and also of application and acquired habits of industry, and was partially, at least, a success in his last chosen field of endeavor, the law. His widow and son and daughters after his death removed to Philadelphia, Pa., where the father and grandfather McComb had made some provision for them.
From The Richland Shield & Banner: October 27, 1894, Vol. LXXVII, No. 24