My Genealogy Hound

ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON, a mechanical engineer of Bethlehem, occupies a responsible position as Superintendent of the plate department of the Bethlehem Iron Company. He is very enterprising and public-spirited, and thoroughly conversant with the details of his business, being a graduate of Lehigh University, where he received his degree as a mechanical engineer.

The birth of Mr. Johnston took place in Phoenixville, Chester County, Pa., he being the son of Joseph Johnston, and the fourth in his family of ten children. The boyhood of our subject was passed in Bethlehem, to which place his father removed when he was a child of only four years, and here he entered the city schools, graduating from the high school at the age of fifteen years. Afterward he served an apprenticeship as a machinist in the Bethlehem Iron Company works, where he remained for four and a-half years, the year and a-half following being spent in the finishing department of the steel-rail mill. In 1885 it was his privilege to enter Lehigh University, where he pursued a course of study in mechanical engineering under Professor Klein, graduating from the institution in 1889. For four months afterward he was in the physical laboratory of the Bethlehem Iron Company, and later entered the forging department, where he took up the forging of guns, shafts, etc. At the end of a year, or in 1890, he was placed in charge of the erection of the one hundred and twenty-five ton hammer which was built in these works, and which took about eight months to erect and place in running order. It was completed by October, 1891. Since that time Mr. Johnston has had charge of the hammer, which is used in the manufacture of armor plates. A press of seven thousand tons for binding armor was also erected by Mr. Johnston, who has charge of it, as well as of another forging press of fourteen thousand tons. The engine for running this press is of fifteen thousand horse-power. The armor-plate machine-shop is also under his supervision.

In 1891 occurred the marriage of our subject to Miss Estelle Borhek, a native of Bethlehem. Her father, A. C. Borhek, is a member of the firm of Borhek & Micksh, dealers in lumber and coal. Mr. and Mrs. Johnston are members of the Moravian Church. While in college the former was President of his class in the Sophomore year, and served for one year as Treasurer. Fraternally our subject belonged to the Greek letter society of Theta Delta Chi.