Background
Johnson was born on April 4, 1841, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, who was a blacksmith, died when John was still a child and left the family in unfortunate financial circumstances.
Johnson was born on April 4, 1841, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, who was a blacksmith, died when John was still a child and left the family in unfortunate financial circumstances.
Young Johnson was able to attend the public schools and graduated from the Philadelphia Central High School in 1857 and began the study of law upon entering the office of Benjamin and Murray Rush in Philadelphia as a scrivener. At the same time he became a student at the Law Academy and attended the law school of the University of Pennsylvania from which he was graduated with the degree of LL. B. in 1863.
Johnson was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1863, and shortly afterward joined a company of volunteer artillery for service at the battle of Gettysburg, but after a very brief time in the field he returned to Philadelphia and began his legal practice in the office of William F. Judson. He discovered that few lawyers had a wide knowledge of corporation law and wisely decided to specialize in this branch of the profession. In a comparatively short time he became one of the best-known corporation lawyers in the United States. He took a leading part in many cases argued before the United States Supreme Court, appearing as counsel for the Northern Securities Company in Northern Securities Company vs. United States (1904) and in Harriman vs. Northern Securities Company, which followed the next year. In several important antitrust cases he represented the corporations as, for example, in the cases of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey vs. United States (1910) and United States vs. American Tobacco Company (1910). In 1908 he represented the railroad company in the case arising from the "commodities clause" of the Hepburn Act of 1906 - United States vs. Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company. Shortly before his death he appeared before the Supreme Court to argue against the constitutionality of the Adamson eight-hour law.
In later years he seldom appeared in court, devoting his time largely to consulting work, since it had become almost proverbial among financiers and others that his opinions were equivalent in value to judicial decisions. He cared nothing for public honors and twice refused a place on the bench of the United States Supreme Court, once offered by President Garfield and again by President Cleveland. He also refused the post of attorney-general in the cabinet of President McKinley.
Though his profession was absorbing to an unusual degree, Johnson had one great means of relaxation, and that was the enjoyment of art - particularly paintings. Over a period of forty years he built up one of the great private collections of America, which upon his death was left to the city of Philadelphia and became the nucleus of the collection later housed in the municipal art museum in Fairmount Park. His collection was thoroughly representative of the chief European schools of painting, especially of the Dutch, Flemish, and Italian. Rubens, Rembrandt, and some of the Dutch genre painters, such as Jan Steen and Adriaen Brouwer, were among his favorites. Among English painters, his collection by John Constable was outstandng, containing twenty-three examples of this artist. His group by Corot was also notable. Among more modern painters, Johnson's taste seemed to lean to French artists, particularly Théodore Rousseau, Degas, and Daubigny. He took an active interest in the Wilstach Museum in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and in the later years of his life was a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
He died from heart failure after a brief illness in Philadelphia, on April 14, 1917.
Johnson took no interest in politics.
Johnson's strength before the courts was due not only to the vigorous power of his accurate reasoning, but still more to the fact that the courts felt absolute trust in the fidelity of his presentation of his cases. His relation to the bar was no less unusual.
In 1870 Johnson had married the widow of Edward Morrell, Ida Powel Morrell, of Philadelphia, but they had no children.
