Background
Johnson was born on April 25, 1786, in Herkimer County, New York. Beyond the facts that his parents were farmers and left their son an orphan at an early age, nothing is known of his early boyhood.
Johnson was born on April 25, 1786, in Herkimer County, New York. Beyond the facts that his parents were farmers and left their son an orphan at an early age, nothing is known of his early boyhood.
Johnson lived with an uncle on a farm until the age of fourteen, when he entered a carpenter's shop as an apprentice.
After four years as an apprentice, Johnson began working at his trade on his own account. From neighbors he heard stories of the new land of promise in the Western Reserve of Ohio. In March 1809, he arrived in Cleveland. Though that settlement was as yet an unorganized village of only fifty inhabitants, he found immediate employment. During 1809 he built the first frame house in the town, in 1813, the old log courthouse and jail, located on the northwest corner of the square. While building a sawmill and a gristmill in Lorain County in 1810, he met his future wife, Margaret Montier.
The War of 1812 gave Johnson the opportunity that changed the whole course of his life. The encampment of General Harrison's forces at Sandusky and after Commodore Perry's victory at Put-in-Bay the occupation of Detroit gave rise to an active trade in military supplies. The needs of transportation, in turn, started ship-building along the South Shore. Johnson and his brother-in-law loaded an abandoned flatboat with potatoes which they sold to the army at Put-in-Bay and followed up this profitable adventure with a load of supplies for the army at Detroit. Other expeditions followed. Johnson now undertook to build a ship of his own, a small, primitive affair with wooden pins in place of spikes and bolts. With this venture he initiated Cleveland's first industry of importance. His voyages were likewise the real beginning of lake navigation. He launched his first vessel, a schooner, in 1814, another in 1816, and a steamboat, the Enterprise, in 1824.
After the War of 1812 he carried cargoes of merchandise from Buffalo to the small lake towns that flourished with the westward movement, and returned with cargoes of fur from the Northwest. Johnson retired from the lake trade and ship-building about 1830, and during the remainder of his active life, 1830-1858, he was a building contractor. Light-houses along the South Shore of Lake Erie, the first work on the government piers in Cleveland, and several important business buildings are monuments to his successful career. He died on December 19, 1871.
Johnson met Margaret Montier in Lorain County in 1810. She was of French parentage and a native of Pennsylvania. A year later they were married and took up their residence in Cleveland.
