Two Brothers, Two Worlds

William and George Johnston and their impact on 19th-century Michigan

By Ren Brabenec | Jan. 25, 2025

American history books are filled with the names of people who won battles, invented things, advanced society (or impeded it), and otherwise did something notable to earn their place in the historical record. Unfortunately, less attention is paid to the everyday folks of decades and centuries past, regular men and women who were deeply involved in the business of making the world go round.

William and George Johnston, sons of an Irish-born Sault Ste Marie fur trader and an Ojibwe matriarch, are two such individuals.

Meet the Brothers

Eliot Singer, former MSU professor and an avid historian and folklorist, has dedicated much of his retirement to transcribing and publishing 19th-century letters and records from Michigan’s “everyday” folks, people who Singer says had a profound impact on the Great Lakes State but whom history has barely made a footnote record of.

Singer first introduces us to William Johnston (1811-1863) as someone who took over the Sault-based family fur trading business at the age of 13. William later went on to collect and translate countless descriptions of Indigenous cultures and customs across the Great Lakes region, descriptions that his brother-in-law, the famous geologist and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft, edited for the book Algic Researches in 1839.

William Johnston’s documentation of Ojibwe culture, language, and living also became the basis for the “Song of Hiawatha” Longfellow poem. William Johnston also authored what might have been the first ethnography of the region, titled “Manners and Customs of the Leech Lake Indians,” as well as the 1833 work “Letters on the Fur Trade,” which his sister Jane Schoolcraft later edited and published.

George Johnston (1796-1861) pioneered the practice of obtaining geological specimens, artifacts, pictograph interpretations, trinkets, tools, ecological substances, and recorded traditions and tales. This Johnston brother spent decades traveling across Michigan in pursuit of various odd jobs, always collecting important items and sending them to big names like Henry Schoolcraft, then-Michigan Territory Governor Lewis Cass, and then-Superintendent of Indian Affairs Thomas McKenney.

Some of George Johnston’s most notable intellectual contributions included a carefully documented list of Indigenous names for Michigan rivers from Mackinac to Chicago. Many items George Johnston collected were later preserved and displayed in museums and historical societies across the state.

Far-Reaching Contributions

“So one of them was good at writing things down and the other liked to collect trinkets,” Singer jokes, imitating what a critic might say if all they knew about the Johnston brothers was the brief descriptions outlined above. Singer pauses for dramatic effect. “But here’s where the history gets really interesting,” he says.

In the manner of a Boy Scout troop leader casting an epic yarn over a smoldering campfire, Singer launches into a game of connect-the-dots storytelling, something that can only be described as the retired professor’s magnum opus.

“William and George were both fur traders, so they spent a lot of time traveling across Michigan trying to secure furs, a business that had numerous ups and downs throughout the 1800s,” Singer explains. “These were just good-natured men who often fell on hard times, but they were also highly self-educated and they performed a phenomenal service by documenting what it was like to live and work in 1800s Michigan. Due to the economic hardships that affected not only them but most everyone they knew, the Johnston brothers often sought employment connections with higher ups in both the territory’s government and with federal officials.”

Singer describes how the two brothers inadvertently shaped entire aspects of Michigan’s history. Through his documentation and avid letter-writing, William informed people as high up as Governor Lewis Cass on relatively unknown aspects of the north country. George’s knack for collecting and preserving items of value also played a major role. His presentation of mineral samples to Cass, Schoolcraft, and McKenny piqued the interest in what would soon become Michigan’s booming mining industry.

Forming Cultural Bridges

Many of William and George’s contributions were aided by the brothers being part Euro-American and part Ojibwe. As multilingual individuals who had grown up in a household that embodied both Anglo and Ojibwe traditions, the brothers could walk in Michigan’s nascent urban centers as easily as they could in the north country’s Indigenous tribal villages.

To Singer, this fact was essential in making the brothers’ contributions possible.

Case in point, in the 1810s, then-Governor Lewis Cass returned from serving in the War of 1812. The controversial figure set his eyes on the Upper Peninsula, intending to entrench American power in the region and show once and for all that the British and the Ojibwe tribes would not control the necessary transit lines between Michigan and Ontario.

In 1820, Cass took a small military contingent and marched to the Sault, demanding control of the region. Some of the Ojibwe leaders planned to stand their ground, and, given their superior numbers, effectively massacre Cass’s troops. George Johnston, encouraged by his Ojibwe mother, Ozhaguscodaywayquay (Green Meadow Woman), stopped the conflict before it began. In a feat of diplomacy, the 24-year-old George negotiated a temporary truce, all without a single shot being fired.

“Because William and George were part-white, part-native, and because they were not members of the upper classes and ‘high society’ of the time, they rarely got credit for their contributions,” Singer laments. “They were just 19th-century working-class Michiganders who were trying to make a living for themselves and their families. For example, George was once paid to organize and lead an expedition to find the headwaters of the Mississippi River that he didn’t get any credit for, because the expedition was financed and ‘planned’ by Henry Schoolcraft, who took all the credit.”

Singer makes similar observations of William.

“William was a true historian during a time when no one would ever associate a scruffy, poor fur trader with a title like that,” Singer says. “We have him to thank for the historical information that went into the famous ‘Song of Hiawatha’ poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a powerful piece of writing that informed millions of Americans on Native American culture, yet one which William Johnston got zero credit for. And we also have William to thank for the widely-read works of Jane Schoolcraft, as Schoolcraft relied heavily on William’s research and documentation to produce her works.”

Further Reading

Singer says he hopes folks will be interested in the letters that Michiganders used to write to each other 200 years ago. He believes the Johnston brothers are a great place to start, as their letters are legible, articulate, informative, interesting, and just plain fun to read.

“People ought to have access to original historical documents, and the digital era has made that access far easier than the microfiche we used to fuss over back in the day,” he says.

Singer brought his story to a close by raising his hand and ticking off the following on his fingers. “They [the Johnston brothers] lived hard, were poor, highly intelligent, and almost wholly self-educated. They were multilingual, skilled in many trades, and they each played several roles in shaping and preserving Michigan’s human history. Sadly, almost no one knows about them because they never sought fame or celebrity and, even if they had, the culture of the time looked poorly on elevating mixed-blood Americans.”

Singer is currently transcribing the handwritten letters of George and William Johnston. The in-progress collection of letters can be found on Singer’s website, picaresquescholar.wordpress.com.