JOHNSON, Calvin

JOHNSON, HOSACK, MCGILL, MCCLINOCK, SMITH

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/28/2014 at 13:19:05

Biography ~ Calvin Johnson

"Biographical and Historical Record of
Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa"
(Lewis Publishing Company (1887)), p. 634:

CALVIN JOHNSON, a pioneer of Franklin Township, is a native of Tennessee, born in 1802, a son of WILLIAM and MARY (HOSACK) JOHNSON. When he was fourteen years old his father moved to Indiana, and lived in Knox County until after the Indian treaty, when he went to Sullivan County, the same State, where he bought land, and made it his home until his death, aged ninety-nine years, his wife dying about the same time. Our subject lived in Indiana over thirty-five years, and in his youth assisted his father to clear and improve a frontier farm. After leaving home he followed boating on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers several years, and at the same time superintended his farm. In 1853 he came to Iowa, and was the second person to enter land in Franklin Township, Decatur County. He entered and purchased 1,200 acres, which he at once set about to improve. He built a rough log cabin, with a puncheon floor, clapboard door and roof, and in this the family lived several years. The country at that time abounded in wild game, and neighbors were few and lived miles apart. He cut the first path from his land to Leon, but has lived to see the county develop into productive farms and thrifty villages, with good roads, and to see it connected with the large cities of our country by the rail-road, which furnishes the producer with markets and enables him to obtain larger profits with much less labor than in the pioneer days. Mr. JOHNSON was married in 1830 to Miss SARAH MCGILL, who died in 1864. They had a family of six children, three of whom are living – MARY, BETSEY, and ALFRED. SARAH, JOSEPH and an infant unnamed, are deceased. In 1865 Mr. JOHNSON married ELIZA (MCCLINOCK) SMITH. Mr. JOHNSON is a member of the Presbyterian church, and in 1855 assisted in the organization of the church at Garden Grove, and has since served as one of its ruling elders.

Transcription by Sara LeFleur, Decatur County Historical Society Museum, January of 2014