DCMS's First President
Excerpt from, "The Making of a Century: A Biological Sketch."
by Douglas M. Willis, 1976 DMJ Vol. 62, No. 12, p. 610-112

Dr Albert Addison Johnston was descended from a pioneer Kentucky family. His grandfather Johnston, an Irish immigrant, settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in Kentucky in what is now Nelson County, near Bardstown. This grandfather was evidently of hardy pioneer stock, as he died of injuries sustained in an accident at age 95.

Dr Johnston's father, Richard Johnston, was born in Kentucky in 1792. Richard Johnston married a Miss Pullen, whose family had moved from Virginia to Kentucky when she was 14 years old and had become neighbors of the Johnstons. A son was born on February 2, 1835, and named Albert Addison. He grew up on his father's farm in Nelson County and probably became adept at the farm chores that generally were required of boys in early America. He secured "common school education" in his local community, and later attended St Mary's College in adjoining Marion County.

Although it is not certain when Dr Johnston acquired his ambition to study medicine, in 1852 he commenced "reading medicine" under Doctors Gore and Bemus in Bloomfield, a village not far from home. Two years later, he entered the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, which had a faculty of eight doctors. After graduation in 1856, he practiced for a few months at "Nelson's Furnace," which is probably the present community of Nelsonville.

Perhaps Dr Johnston's pioneer heritage was asserting itself when he decided to move his practice to the infant town of Dallas in the fall of 1856. This 21-year-old bachelor doctor journeyed to the rude frontier village and established himself as one of a hardy group of pioneer Texas medical men. One writer, identity unknown, had this to say about his early days in Dallas: "Dr Johnston speedily built up, and, until the war began, maintained a large though laborious practice, chiefly on horseback, through a large district of country."

The young doctor evidently found some time for social life after meeting the pretty young daughter of a pioneer Dallas preacher. After a successful courtship, he won the hand of Miss Elizabeth Griffin in marriage on Sept 2, 1858. Her father, Elder Thacker Vivian Griffin, was a well-known minister of the Christian Church from Tennessee. He is credited by some writers with establishing the first congregation of that church in Dallas County in 1846 at Hord's Ridge near the present location of the Dallas Zoo in Oak Cliff. Her mother was Catherine Medearis Griffin, who died in 1845 when Elizabeth was 3 years old. Her father married again in 1846, a widow Librina Ray, and came to Texas that same year, bringing Elizabeth and her brother Joseph.

A contemporary of Elizabeth Griffin Johnston wrote, "Mrs Johnston acquired a good education in Dallas and by self-culture subsequently. She ranks as one of the most intelligent and accomplished ladies of the country, a great lover of nature and a zealous member of the church of her father." She is reported to have been the children's page editor of a church paper.

After his marriage in 1858, Dr Johnston continued his medical practice in Dallas County. On July 6 of the following year, Richard Griffin Johnston was born to the young couple and named after his two grandfathers.

With the secession of the Southern states and the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr Johnston chose to serve the Southern cause as a surgeon in the Confederate Army. Apparently he served most of the war in Louisiana under a Texas command. His wife, in order to be near him, went to live with an aunt, Mrs Sarah Medearis Lloyd, near Cheneyville, La. James D. Lloyd, her husband, owned a large plantation home there, known as Lloyd Hall. It was probably at Lloyd Hall that the 4-year-old son of the Johnstons died on Oct 26, 1863. There were never any other children.

It was with heavy hearts that the Johnstons returned to Dallas after the war. The cause that he had served so well was lost. Their only child was dead. Her only brother, Joseph, had lost his life in the Confederate service at the Battle of Mansfield. Her grandmother had died at Lloyd Hall in 1864. Their financial condition must have suffered greatly by his service. They busied themselves, however, with rebuilding his medical practice. For more than 30 years after the war, he continued to minister to the sick in Dallas and Dallas County.

He became a member of the Christian Church in 1873 and was active thereafter in its work. The Knights Templar of the Masonic order honored him for his devoted service to that organization by naming him the State Grand Commander. He was a member of Tannehill Lodge #52.

When 17 Dallas County doctors met to form the Dallas County Medical Society in 1876, Dr Johnston was honored by his fellow physicians by being elected the first president of this organization.

In 1897, his devoted wife of 39 years died. After her death, he retired from active medical practice. Eight years later, on Feb 10, 1905, Dr Albert Addison Johnston died at the age of 70. His death occurred at 350 Ross Ave in Dallas, after a two-day illness.

The funeral for Dr Johnston was conducted on Sunday afternoon, Feb 12, 1905, at the Central Christian Church with burial in Greenwood Cemetery. At the time of his death and funeral, Dallas was experiencing a severe winter storm with temperatures around zero. Newspaper accounts report a large crowd of prominent Dallas citizens paying their respects to him in spite of the unfavorable weather. Only a niece in Kentucky was mentioned as a surviving relative.

No doubt Dr Johnston had made many trips on horseback in such weather to remote settlers' cabins to deliver babies or sit through the night by the bedside of the very ill. He had come to the primitive frontier community of Dallas in 1856, as an ambitious, inexperienced young man. He lived to see it become a thriving metropolitan center of trade and industry, with two daily newspapers. He lived to see himself become elderly and honored by the city and the profession he had served so long and so well.