William L. Johnston was a carpenter-architect who taught architectural drawing

Architectural drawing

An architectural drawing or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building that falls within the definition of architecture...

 at the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia

Carpenters' Hall

Carpenters' Hall is a two-story brick building in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Completed in 1773 and set back from Chestnut Street, the meeting hall was built for and is still owned by the...

, and won a number of important Philadelphia commissions. He died of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 at the age of 38 after a trip abroad for his health.

His Philadelphia Buildings

• "Phil-Ellena" (George W. Carpenter mansion), Germantown, Philadelphia, PA (1844, demolished 1898). This mammoth Greek-Revival mansion on a 500 acres (2 km²) estate was the largest private residence in Philadelphia.
• Mercantile Library
  Mercantile Library Company (Philadelphia)
  The Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia was established in 1821. Staff included John Edmands. In 1989 the Free Library of Philadelphia absorbed the collections of the Mercantile Library.-Further reading:* William Ellery Channing. -External links:...
  
   (Burroughs Building), 125 S. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA (1844–45, demolished 1925).
• Bank of Commerce, 211 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA (c. 1846, demolished).

  "BANK OF COMMERCE, formerly the Moyamensing Bank. Incorporated in the year 1832, with a capital of $250,000. The present banking-house of this institution, located in Chestnut west of Second Street, is constructed of brown stone. In the design of this building, the architect, the late Mr. JOHNSTON, has evidently studied utility more than display; yet the genius of the true artist manifests itself throughout, and few of our public buildings of this order, surpass it as an imposing piece of architecture."

• Central Presbyterian Church, 832-36 Lombard St., Philadelphia, PA (1848). Founded by Rev. Stephen H. Gloucester, a former slave, this was the first black Presbyterian church in Philadelphia. The congregation moved to West Philadelphia in 1939, and the building is now a private residence.
• Entrance Gate to Hood Cemetery (aka Lower Burying Ground), 4901 Germantown Ave., Germantown, Philadelphia, PA (1849).
• Jayne Building, 242-44 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA (1849–50, demolished 1957) (completed by Thomas U. Walter
  Thomas U. Walter
  Thomas Ustick Walter of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was an American architect, the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Latrobe and the emergence of H.H. Richardson in the 1870s...
  
  ). Charles E. Peterson
  Charles E. Peterson
  Charles Emil Peterson is widely considered to be a seminal figure in professionalizing the practice of historic preservation in the United States...
  
   argued that Johnston's 129 feet (39.3 m)-tall building was a proto-skyscraper, and influenced the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan
  Louis Sullivan
  Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
  
  , who worked directly across the street from it in the office of Frank Furness
  Frank Furness
  Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...
  
  . Peterson's efforts to save the building were unsuccessful; it was demolished in 1957 in the creation of Independence National Historical Park
  Independence National Historical Park
  Independence National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Philadelphia that preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation's founding history. Administered by the National Park Service, the park comprises much of the downtown historic...
  
  .

Publications

William Johnson Architect published with Peter Nicholson the Thirteenth Edition of The Carpenter's New Guide Being a Complete Book of Lines for Carpentry and Joinery; Grigg, Elliot and Co., Philadelphia, 1848. The printers were T. K. and P. G. Collins, Printers of Philadelphia. The book is listed as number 835 in Henry-Russell Hitchcock's American Architectural Books published in American before 1895.

Further reading

• Charles E. Peterson
  Charles E. Peterson
  Charles Emil Peterson is widely considered to be a seminal figure in professionalizing the practice of historic preservation in the United States...
  
  , "Ante-Bellum Skyscraper" in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 9 (1950), pp. 25–28.
• James E. Massey, "Carpenters' School, 1833-42" in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 14 (1955), pp. 29–30.
• Ada Louise Huxtable
  Ada Louise Huxtable
  Ada Louise Huxtable is an architecture critic and writer on architecture. In 1970 she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for "distinguished criticism during 1969."...
  
  , "Jayne Building - 1849-50" in Progressive Architecture, vol. 37 (1956), pp. 133–34.