Virgil W. Johnston, banker, with offices at No. 10 Main Street in Champaign, has been a resident of this city for the past eighteen years.
He was born in McLean County, Illinois, March 15, 1871. His father James Johnston, a native of Ohio, grew up in Indiana and in 1852 removed to McLean County, Illinois, bought land from the government, developed it as a farm, and lived there prosperous and an influential citizen until his death in 1905. He was a Republican in politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. James Johnston married Eleanor Marrs, who was born in Ohio in 1831, and was a young bride when she came to Illinois in 1852. Her death occurred in McLean County in 1901. Virgil W. Johnston was one of four children. His brother Lucien C. lives at Seward, Nebraska; his brother Alva E. lives at Monticello, Indiana; and his brother Milo D. at Olustee, Oklahoma.
Virgil W. Johnston was educated in country schools, had the environment of a typical Illinois farmer boy, and subsequently continued his education in the Fairbury High School. He was graduated from the Bloomington Law School in 1896. He has given most of his time and energies to the abstract business. He was in that business at Pontiac, Illinois, from 1896 to 1899, and in the latter year bought the old established abstract business of Colonel Wilcox at Champaign. He still owns and directs this abstract office. Since 1902 Mr. Johnston has been identified with banking.
He is a member of the Champaign Club, the Champaign City Club, the Elks, and in politics is a Republican. On August 3, 1898, at Normal, Illinois, he married Vinnie Vennum.