From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA, not currently in print
Thomas Sydney Johnston was the son of Benjamin B. Johnston and Naomi Jane Hensley. They came to Dallas County in 1880 and settled southeast of Cedar Hill. B. B. Johnston was a school teacher and a farmer. Thomas married Josephene Martha Hopkins, daughter of pioneer parents, John Hopkins and Margaret Fox Hopkins, who came to Dallas in 1847 by ox-team drawn wagons.
The Hopkins settled on the southwest corner of what is Ledbetter and Duncanville Road, Duncanville Road being their east boundary line. John Hopkins died 1849 and Margaret died 1864. John’s son, John W. Hopkins, bought more land west of Ledbetter Drive on both sides of Merrifield Road. This land was purchased in June 1878 and is still in the same family.
John W. Hopkins married Mary Elizabeth Hight. The Hight family had come to Dallas in 1858 settled on land joining the Hopkins family property. John W. Hopkins and his brothers and sisters joined the growing numbers of young families building southwestern Dallas County into the proud communities that are still growing.
John and Margaret Hopkins had Elvira (Katie), who married Thomas A. Merrifield; Lillian (Lillie), who married Charles Leslie Brandenburg; Josie, who married Thomas S. Johnston, son of subject pioneer; David Lee, who married Mary Elizabeth (Mollie) Carr; and Margaret, who married Arthur Elbert Haynes. These family names that appeared in the 1881 Directory of Dallas Citizens appear today in the boardrooms, on ballots, on lists of civic organizations and historical socie ties, still pioneers, standing proud.
By Verna Vinyard Plummer and Zelda Vinyard Johnston
