Catherine Walker Johnson was the first wife of Col. William Brent of Washington D.C., who served as Clerk of the Circuit Court there for many years. Catherine's father was Thomas Johnson Jr., the first postmaster for the City of Washington in 1795. He died the same year.

Her obituary gives little useful information - nothing about her parents - and does not mention her maiden name, Johnson. She died July 1st and was buried the next day. She was a sister, according to the obituary, so she had at least one sibling. She went through a long illness, but what that might have been is not known. She and William had six children before she died - five sons and one daughter. The daughter, Emily Catherine, was only two when her mother died. Her father remarried three years later to Elizabeth Neale. William and Elizabeth had six children, three boys and three girls.

Catherine was said to have been buried at Brentwood, the home of Robert Brent, her husband William Brent's brother and the first mayor of Washington D.C. Brentwood Manor stood near Florida Avenue N.E. and 6th Street N.E., near present day Gallaudet University. Vandalism at the property, about 1915, resulted in Catherine's remains, as well as those of Robert Brent and his dauther, Eleanor Brent Pearson, and possibly others, being reinterred at St. John the Evangelist Cemetery in Forest Glen Maryland where many Brents and Carrolls are buried, including her husband, William Brent.