James Nichol Johnston was born in Donegal, Ireland in 1832, the son of Gerald and Jane Nichol Johnston. The family moved from Ireland to Canada in 1847 and settled in Buffalo, NY in 1848. As a young man, he became an agent at the iron-works company of Pratt Letchworth and became a lifelong personal friend of William Pryor Letchworth. Letchworth introduced Johnston to the prolific literary culture of the Buffalo and Western New York areas. In 1858, Johnston and Letchworth were both members of the Nameless Club, a literary discussion group with members of "peculiar and varied talent.^1"

Throughout his life, Johnston was very interested in poetry and verse. He spent several years hunting through newspaper clippings of The Buffalo Courier and The Buffalo Sunday Express collecting the "published and unpublished songs of Buffalo men and women.^2" In 1904 he published the anthology, The Poets and Poetry of Buffalo in order to bring the writings of local poets into one representative book. "I have watched," he writes in the preface to the anthology, "the flowering of this native verse with a very warm interest from the early years of my life in Buffalo, when I began acquaintances with men and women in the older circles of those to whom poetry is a delight.^3" Four years later, he published a slim volume of his own poetry, Donegal Memories.
Johnston's life and work was centered around friends and poetry. At his death, friends and family called him "devoted.. He had a ready wit; he was an unusually interested and well-informed conversationalist. His time was always at the command of a friend for all the services he could perform.^4" Johnston died in Buffalo on February 14, 1918.
¹ Sixth Anniversary of The Nameless, October 27, 1864
² Johnston obituary, Buffalo Morning Express, February 15, 1918
³ Preface, The Poets and Poetry of Buffalo, 1904
⁴ Johnston obituary, Buffalo Morning Express, February 15, 1918