Maria I. Johnston

Maria I. Johnston (, Barnett; after first marriage, Buck; after second marriage, Johnston; pen names, Paul Pry and Neal Caxton; May 3, 1835 – September 3, 1921) was an American author, journalist, editor and lecturer. She wrote many stories, long and short. In her stories, she dealt for the most part with life in the West and South, the conditions caused by war and slavery being considered. She was the author of The Siege of Vicksburg, The Freedwoman, Jane, Hector, Oh, Come with Me to the West, Love, Miss Emily's Glove, Ante-Bellum, and The Story of a Confederate Colonel. Johnston was active with newspaper work and was identified with newspapers in St. Louis, New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Memphis. At times, she wrote under the nom de plumes of "Paul Pry" and "Neal Caxton".

Johnston was educated in private schools in Vicksburg, and in St. Louis. She also had private lessons from Josiah Gilbert Holland and studied art in Europe. Johnston interwove a love story with the historical facts of that period. The first edition of the book sold well, but as Johnston had no thought of continuing as a writer, a second edition was not issued.

Johnston dated her literary success from the subsequent publication of an article entitled "Gallantry, North and South," which appeared in the Planters' Journal and was copied in several other papers. The Chart Club of St. Louis was formed in the early 1890s, and started with only 20 members. By 1912, it numbered over 300. During these years, the hospitality of the most exclusive homes was extended for the club's meetings. The club met each year from October through February on Saturdays at eleven o'clock, the lecture concluding at twelve o'clock, after which a buffet luncheon was served. The Chart Club derived its name from a simple historical Chart made individually by its original 20 members, from a bit of paper folded into sixty divisions, each representing a Century and colored accordingly. A deep red color represented "The Era of Imperial Rome"; smoke color represented "The Decay of Civilization"; gold color represented "The Age of Pericles and The Renaissance". This then was the skeleton upon which a lecturer placed facts accumulated from analysis after she searched through academic shades of literature. Two dollars per session was the fee. Each member could bring a guest. Johnston covered many fields of intellectual work. A special program was arranged during the holiday season in which some of the best artists of St. Louis appeared.

Personal life In Vicksburg, on October 7, 1852, she married Charles Lunsford Buck (1824–1862), who died in the first year of the civil war, leaving her with three children, Horace (b. 1853), Isabel (b. 1856), and Mary (b. 1858). She spent periods of time in Alexandria, Louisiana, where her daughter, Mrs. Mary Wade, lived.

During the summer of 1897, and again in 1898, Johnston chaperoned a large party of young women of St. Louis traveling through Europe. In 1899, she was in Europe, traveling with another group of women from The Hague to London. In 1900, she included attending the Oberammergau Passion Play and the Paris Exposition in the itinerary of the chaparoned trip. Again in 1907, Johnston chaparoned a party of friends on a European tour.

In 1920, Johnston moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she died, September 3, 1921.

Poems "A Man and A Maid" (1915) "Nineteen-Twenty" (1919)