childhood Hailing from a distinguished Virginia family, which was linked to the Washingtons through the Steptoes, Confederate General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, and best-selling novelist Mary Johnston (d. 1936), James Steptoe Johnston was born in 1843 in
Church Hill, Jefferson County, Mississippi. He was the son of a local attorney and cotton planter James Steptoe Johnston and his wife Louisa Clarissa Bridges Newman. He was educated at
Oakland College, near
Rodney, Mississippi.
Career The early years of Johnston's episcopate were difficult. He was the sole bishop for an area of some , most of which was only accessibly on horseback or by stage coach. The area was also experiencing severe economic difficulties due to a prolonged drought. He particularly stressed the need for an educated élite in such an environment, and to this end founded in 1893 a Church school he named the West Texas Military Academy (now
TMI — The Episcopal School of Texas) to provide a classical and Christian education for young men in the area. Johnston raised money for the school from wealthy Episcopalians on the Eastern Seaboard. Johnston became a progressive in terms of race. He wished to see greater equality between whites, blacks, and the more numerous Mexican-American citizens of his region. He was instrumental to founding St. Philip's College in San Antonio, which existed for the training of African-American women. He happily welcomed a formerly Methodist congregation of African-Americans into the Episcopal Church. Bishop Johnston came from the Southern High Church inflection of the Episcopal Church; so he was open to ideas from the Oxford or
Tractarian Movement (1833-1845) and was quite advanced with his view that Episcopalians must seek fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church was by far the largest religious group in Southern and Western Texas. Johnston wrote on several occasions to the Vatican expressing his desire for Christian unity. In 1904, West Texas became a self-supporting diocese and Johnston was duly elected its first ordinary bishop. Johnston retired in 1916, having served for twenty-eight years as a bishop. He remained committed to the life of the diocese, especially to St. Philip's and WTMA. In regards to the latter project, which became a highly regarded college preparatory school, he once wrote a prospective donor: "The best use of wealth is to coin it into character."
Death He died at his home in San Antonio on November 4, 1924. ==References==