Margaret Johnston
(1799-1870)
What Little We Know of Margaret Johnston
Vital Statistics & Family Connections
Born: 30 June 1778 (some records suggest 1784)
Parents: William Johnston and Jane McGrady Johnston
Died: 1820 • Edinboro, Erie County, Pennsylvania
Spouses:
William Patton Culbertson (1765–1843), married January 1806
Mr. Cochran (first name unknown)
Known Children:
With William Patton Culbertson:
Maria J. Culbertson (born 1806)
James Johnston Culbertson (born 1809)
Josiah J. Culbertson (1812–1868)
Cyrus A. Culbertson (born 1814)
Elizabeth Culbertson
With Mr. Cochran:
Juliana Cochran (1799–1870)
Notable Descendants:
Juliana Cochran later married William Perry McGill. Their son was William Johnston McGill, continuing the Johnston name into later generations of the McGill family.
Margaret Johnston and the First Settlers of Edinboro Pennsylvania
Margaret Johnston lived during the earliest years of settlement in northwestern Pennsylvania, when Erie County was still considered frontier country and towns were little more than rough clearings connected by muddy wagon paths and horseback trails. The forests around Edinboro were dense, winters were severe, and nearly every necessity of life had to be built, hauled, planted, or repaired by hand.
Her parents, William Johnston and Jane McGrady Johnston, belonged to the generation that pushed westward into Pennsylvania after the American Revolution, joining thousands of families searching for farmland and opportunity beyond the older eastern settlements. Travel was slow and uncertain. A trip that today takes minutes could once consume an entire day on horseback through woods, creeks, and primitive roads.
William Patton Culbertson and the Founding of Edinboro
Margaret’s life became closely tied to one of the founding families of Edinboro. Her husband, William Patton Culbertson, was among the community’s earliest and most influential settlers. Historical accounts describe him as a man deeply involved in building the village itself. He acquired nearly one thousand acres of land and established the first grist mill and later the first saw mill in the area — both essential to pioneer life. Farmers needed grain ground into flour, and every cabin, barn, fence, and business depended on cut lumber.
Culbertson also laid out much of the village and donated land for Erie Street, reportedly planned at an impressive one hundred feet wide. He further donated the land for the community cemetery, where generations of the family would later be buried.
Life in Edinboro during Margaret’s years there would have been filled with constant movement and labor. Men traveled long distances on horseback to conduct business, settle disputes, attend church meetings, or deliver supplies. Historical accounts say William Culbertson, while serving as justice of the peace, often rode miles to resolve disagreements before they ever reached a courtroom. In isolated communities, practical peacekeeping mattered more than formal proceedings.
Church, Politics, and Community Life on the Frontier
Politics and religion were woven deeply into daily life. William Culbertson was described as a Whig and a devoted Presbyterian — both identities carrying considerable importance in early nineteenth-century Pennsylvania. The Presbyterian church often served not only as a religious center, but also as a gathering place where news, politics, marriages, deaths, and business circulated through the community.
Margaret entered the Culbertson household as William’s second wife after the death of his first wife, Mary Culbertson. Together they raised several children during a period when the region itself was still taking shape from wilderness into settled farmland and village life.
Legacy of the Johnston and Culbertson Families in Erie County
The records surrounding Margaret are imperfect and occasionally conflicting. Some sources place her birth in 1778, others in 1784. Her daughter Juliana Cochran appears connected to a later marriage to a man named Cochran, whose first name has not survived in available records. Like many women of the era, Margaret’s life survives only in fragments — census entries, family Bibles, local histories, marriage connections, and the records of the men around her.
Yet through those fragments, her place in the story becomes clear.
She belonged to the generation that helped establish northwestern Pennsylvania during its earliest settlement years, traveling difficult roads, raising children in a frontier environment, and becoming part of the network of families that shaped communities like Edinboro from scattered clearings into permanent towns.
Some of the Sources Consulted -
Mini-bio from Family Search on Margaret Johnston, born in 1784.
GENEALOGY OF THE CULBERTSON AND CULBERSON FAMILIES Revised Edition Who came to America before the year 1800. (1923), compiled by Lewis R. Culbertson, M.D.,
A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, published in 1909 by John Miller and the Lewis Publishing Company