Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson,7, (11) [Elisha6, John5, Benja-
min4, James, Jr.3, James2, Edmund1], fifth child and third
son of Elisha6, and second wife Rachel (Huse) Johnson,
born in Knox, Waldo county, Maine, July 19, 1814; was
married September 22, 1839, in Ripley, Sommersett county,
Maine, at the home of Cyrus Blood Jones, brother of his
bride, where her mother lived (intentions of marriage
published in Ripley, September 7, 1839), to Laura Ann,
ninth child and fourth daughter of Jonathan and Betsey
(Stanley) Jones, ( ) born in Ripley, July 17, 1818,
who died at the home of her son, Voltaire W. Johnson, in
Alpha, Fayette county, Iowa, January 21, 1911. He died
at West Union, September 26, 1878, and they are both
buried in Bethel cemetery, Bethel township, Fayette county, Iowa.
His boyhood was about equally divided between the
school room, where he acquired such an education that
when a young man he taught several terms of school, and
his father’s shop, where he learned the trade of black-
smith; and at the time of his marriage established him-
self in that business in Freedom.
In 1846 he moved to Lewiston, Maine, and in company
with his brother-in-law, John Emery, took a contract for
grading on the Grand Trunk Railroad, on which they in-
curred so much loss that the surrender of their entire
property was not sufficient to pay their indebtedness; so
in the excitement following the discovery of gold in California in the fall of 1848, they sailed from Boston in the Ship “Capitol” (the first vessel to leave that port for San Francisco), for that far-off eldorado to retrieve their fortunes; the voyage via Cape Horn being a very stormy one they did not reach that port until the nineteenth of
the next July, the thirty-fifth anniversary of his birthday.
On arriving home in January, 1851, his first care was
to settle with his creditors in the railroad business, which
he did to their entire satisfaction; he then decided to go
to a new home in the west, and after traveling through
several of the middle and western states, purchased a farm
V>f six hundred acres in Green county, Wisconsin, and
moved his family there in August, 1851.
During his residence there, of nearly eighteen years, he
served the people continuously in either a township or
county office, and at the time of his removal to Iowa, in
1869, was county commissioner to the poor.
On coming to Iowa, he purchased the sight of a water
power, constructed a dam, and erected what has become
so well known as “Johnson’s Mill,” around which has
grown up the village of “Alpha,” making it a very valu-
able property.
In 1876 he was elected a member of the board of county
supervisors, and was in attendance upon public business
when stricken with the illness from which he died.
He was a Republican in politics, from the organization of the party, voting for Fremont in 1856, and heartily affiliating with the party ever after.
He was for many years a member of the Masonic order,
and at his death was an honored member of West Union
Lodge Number 69.
He was a man of superior intellect and honor; a staunch
and true friend, loved and respected wherever known.
Tribute to his estimable wife, of whom it may be truth-
fully said: “All sounds of life assumed one tone of love.”
Who, for thirty years, in her loneliness, kept the honor of
his noble life unsullied, and the memory of his virtues un-
dimmed, and left to their children the rich inheritance of
their parents’ noble lives.
Now, the earthly task being ended, the children place
the mortal remains of the devoted wife, the faithful, lov-
ing mother, beside those of the husband and father; the
honor of each life adds to the memory of all that is good
and noble and great.
“And some time, in the great beyond,
She may come to us again.”

Last Modified 16 Nov 2023Created 19 Feb 2024 using Reunion for Macintosh