Obituary
Catherine Walker Johnson Brent, 1822


Obituary of Catherine Walker Johnson Brent, 1822, Washington D.C.

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.



Related links:
William Brent, biographical sketch
Notice of marriage for William Brent and Catherine Walker Johnson, 1805
Col. William Brent, notice of death, 1848
Gravestone of Catherine Walker Johnson, d.1822, Forest Glen, Maryland
Gravestone of William and his second wife, Elizabeth Neale, Forest Glen, Maryland
St. John the Evangelist Cemetery, Forest Glen, Maryland, also known as the Carroll Chapel Cemetery
Thomas Johnson Jr, 1753-1795, Catherine's father
Robert and Ann Carroll Brent, parents of William Brent


The obituary of Catherine Walker Brent appeared in the National Intelligencer, Washington, D.C., on 2 July 1822. The image is from FHL MF 176513: Daily National Intelligencer, Washington, D.C.


Anne Healy's Genealogy, Created October 2002
Photographs and web page content,Copyright © 2002-2009, Anne Field, all rights reserved.
Please feel free to link to my web page. For permission to use any pictures or content on my web pages, please email me at

25 July 2015
updated 16 May 2020
[home|brent|thomas johnson jr]