Thomas Johnston

Thomas Slater Johnston became a partner in a large wholesale and retail business in Rochester, New York. He was born at Cringloo, Stenness on 23 November 1845, son of Peter Johnston and Betsy Slater. After serving his apprenticeship as a draper in Stromness and then working in Glasgow, he went to the United States in 1868 to take charge of the men’s furnishing’s department of Sibley, Lindsay & Curr, which was just opening in Rochester. Ten years later he replaced Curr as partner but didn’t want the name to be changed.

Their department store was the oldest and largest in Rochester and by 1911 employed 2,300 people. They became an industry leader in finding new products and services to keep customers coming back. After a disastrous fire in 1904 they moved to a new building that is now known as the Sibley’s Building and is one of Rochester’s landmarks.

The business had three branch stores, the Niagara Dry Goods Co, the Erie Dry Goods Co and the Minneapolis Dry Goods Co.

Thomas Johnston married Mary Ann White, daughter of Captain John White from Stromness and had three sons and a daughter. One son graduated from Harvard and the other two from Yale.

He died in 1915, leaving an estate valued at $2,000,000, much of which was left to charity. The 1918 edition of the National Cyclopedia of American Biography said that “his benefactions bespeak the success and worth of his character, as well as the honor which his career reflected on the land of his birth."