William Johnson

    William Johnson, farmer, Shelby Township, was born in the State of Kentucky, March 1, 1802. He was the youngest child of Thomas Johnson, a native of Virginia, who took a trip down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers about the year 1804, and never returned. William Johnson's mother moved near Lexington, and afterward to Shelby County, Kentucky. Her family consisted of three boys and one girl. At the age of 23, Mr. Johnson came to Indiana; he landed at Madison, which was then a very small town. He settled in Shelby Township, on the farm where he now lives with his son, and built himself a stone house, in which he has always resided. Previous to this, however, at the age of twenty-one, he was married to Miss Nancy Spaulding., daughter of Robert Spaulding, a native of Virginia and one of the pioneers of Kentucky.

    He and his wife were the parents of ten children: William, Sally A., Jordan, Rhodes, Henry, Elizabeth, Miranda, Mary Jane, Francis and John. Of these all are living but Sally A. and Elizabeth, and all live in Jefferson County but William and Mary Jane, who both live in Kansas.

    Mr. Johnson's wife died July 31, 1880. He has never held an office. He was educated in the log school-house days, when the chimney was in the corner of the house, and the education was of a limited and poor character. When he first settled in Indiana, two or three months were spent every spring at log rollings, until the land of his neighbors was cleared and their houses built. In those early days the equipment of a farmer  in the way of tools, was a bull-tongue plow and a chopping axe; some time after the wooden mould board plow was introduced; then came the old Barshear, which were considered in their day as superior in kind as the advanced machinery of the present day is now. Trace chains were a luxury belonging to the richer class of farmers -the poorer were content with hickory wythes.

    Mr. Johnson has laid off corn ground without either line or collar. John R. Johnson, the third son of the above, and with whom he makes his home since death of his wife, was born November 4, 1839, on the farm where he now lives, and was raised a farmer. August 14, 1862, he was married to Cynthia Barber, daughter of James Barber, a farmer of Jefferson County. They have but one child -Ettie L.

    Mr. John R. Johnson was a soldier in Company C, Eighty-second Regiment Indiana Volunteers, and was in all the principal engagements of his regiment during the time of service.

    He is a member of the A. O. Bachman Post, No. 26, G. A. R. He is a prominent member of the Baptist Church.

    He owns 67 acres of good, well improved land.

Source: Biographical and Historical Souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott and Washington, Indiana. By John M. Gresham & Co., 1889.