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Johnson vs. Johnston

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One of the most basic identifying traits of a person is their name. Pleasants spells the artist’s last name “Johnston” with a “t”, but says it is possible it could be Johnson without a “t” as well. Johnson without a “t” seems slightly more common throughout the writings on him, but there are primary documents that spell his name both ways. In Sharing Traditions: Five Black Artists in 19th Century America, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan explains how when “emerging from slavery, black northerners were eager to throw off any identification with that hated institution” and that “newly freed northern blacks selected last names which linked them to one another, to their friends and relatives in the South, or to some important historical personage”.[3]

Pleasants spelled his name with a “t” and it was thought that the “t” was dropped through carelessness. Two paintings were later found to be signed “Johnson” without the “t” and this became the preferred spelling.[4] The bill of sale papers are not much help in this query. According to the document William Wheeler Senior sold Joshua Johnson as a young boy to George Johnson in 1764. Eight years later George Johnson acknowledged Joshua as his son and granted him his freedom, either upon completion of an apprenticeship with a blacksmith, or when he reached the age of 21 – whichever came first. This paper was signed in the presence of John Moale who was later a patron of Johnson. The document spells both “George Johnson” and “George Johnston” and only spells Joshua’s last name as “Johnson”.

The dual spelling of Johnson’s name is also found in a petition and advertisements Johnson created. Bearden and Henderson favor the spelling “Johnston” and point to a petition Johnson signed in 1798 for the pavement of a neighborhood street. They also look at the advertisements Johnson put into the Baltimore Intelligencer in 1798 and the Baltimore Telegraphe in 1802. The advertisements are spelled differently. In the 1798 one he spells his name “Johnston” and in the 1802 listing he spells it “Johnson”.[5] It seems that either spelling could be objectively correct.
 

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  1. Joshua Johnson, Painter Greta Kuriger Suiter
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