tory. In 1765 the Stamp Act had been passed,
which agitated the American Colonies from one extremity to the other.
The dark cloud of discontent hung heavily over our people, too truly
foreboding the storm of open rupture, and approaching revolution.
During this exciting period he imbibed those patriotic principles,
which, in subsequent years, governed his actions, and prepared him to
cast in his lot, and heartily unite with those who pledged "their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" in the cause of
American freedom. He emphatically belonged to that class of ardent
young men of the Revolutionary period

"Whose deeds were cast in manly mold,
For hardy sports or contest bold."

Tradition speaks of the wife of Henry Johnston as dying comparatively
young, leaving two children--James, the immediate subject of this
sketch, and Mary--who married Moses Scott, settled near Goshen Church,
in the present county of Gaston, and there ended her days. Moses Scott
had three children--James J., William and Abram Scott. Of these sons,
James Johnston Scott married in 1803, Mary, a daughter of Captain
Robert Alexander, a soldier of the Revolution, and of extensive
usefulness. He (James) died in 1809, in the twenty seventh year of his
age, leaving two children--Abram and Mary Scott, the former of whom in
this Centennial year (1876) still survives, having nearly completed
his "three-score years and ten."

Col. Johnston first entered the service as Captain of a company, in
the winter of 1776, Col. William Graham commanding, against a large
body of Tories in the northwestern section of South Carolina. This
expedition is known in history as the "Snow Campaign," from the
unusually heavy snow, of that winter, and, in conjunction with the
troops of that State, drove the Tory commanders, Cunningham and
Fletcher, from the siege of the post of Ninety Six. On the retreat of
these Tory leaders they surprised and defeated them with a loss of
four hundred of their followers. The reader may be curious to know the
origin of the name "Ninety Six" applied to this post, now constituting
the village of Cambridge, in Abbeville county. It was so called
because it was ninety-six miles from the frontier fort, Prince George,
on Keowee river, in the present county of Pickens. No portion of South
Carolina suffered more during the Revolution than the district around
Ninety-Six. The Tories were numerous, bold and vindictive, and for
that reason t