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DAVID M. JOHNSON. — Prominent among the land owners and agriculturists of Kane township is numbered D. M. Johnson, whose well improved farm is located in section 17. He was born in Otsego county, New York, July 21, 1846, a son of Silas and Roxcy (Hartwell) Johnson. The father was also a native of Otsego county, born in 1809, and he died there at the age of fifty-six years. The mother was born in Connecticut in 1804, and died in Pottawatomie county, Iowa, at the age of sixty-eight years. They were the parents of five children, but only two are now living, James Johnson, the elder, living in Worcester, New York.
David M. Johnson is the younger of these two surviving sons, and leaving his parents home when nineteen years of age he came to Iowa, arriving in the city of Belle Plaine in 1865. For a time he worked on a farm in Homer township, but in the spring of 1866 returned to Belle Plaine and secured employment as a fireman with the Northwestern Railroad Company for one year. In 1869 he bought a farm in Homer township. The land was in its natural state, raw and unimproved, and he improved it and farmed there until 1876, selling it then and buying eighty acres in section 20, Kane township. In 1881 he left that place and bought his present homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, which he has improved in a splendid manner, and he also owns six hundred and forty acres of improved land in Hand county, South Dakota. There are two sets of buildings on his Dakota property.
Mr. Johnson was married on the 3d of June, 1869, to Eliza A. Harlan, who was born near Elkhart, Indiana, on July 11, 1848, and she died on the 7th of April, 1908. Ten children were born of their union, namely: James M., in South Dakota; Frank, at home with his father; Freddie, who died in infancy; David W., also in South Dakota; Effie, wife of T. J. Mason, of Tama county, Iowa; Carrie, wife of Bert Stout, of Belle Plaine, Iowa; George, Edith Myrtle and Irv, all at home; and Cora, deceased. Mrs, Johnson during her life time was a member of the Restitution church. Mr. Johnson is identified with Elberon Lodge No. 283, I. 0. 0. F., and he is a member of the Republican party. He has served as township committeeman and as chairman of the same for several years.
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