Background
Johnson was born in Pomfret, Windsor County, Vermont, to John Johnson, and Alice Elsa Johnson.
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Lyman Johnson
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He broke with Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon during the 1837-1838 period when schism divided the early church. Johnson later became a successful pioneer lawyer in Iowa and was one of the town fathers of Keokuk, Iowa. The family moved to Hiram, Ohio, in 1818, where they established the John Johnson Farm, a successful 300-acre (12 km2) farm.
Johnson died in 1859, drowning in the Mississippi River in a boating accident at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
He had at least five children. Early contact
Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith moved into the Johnson home on September 12, 1831.
Within a month, Johnson was ordained an elder and then a high priest of the Latter Day Saint church. In response to a revelation given on January 25, 1832, Johnson joined Orson Pratt on an evangelizing mission which took them through the northeastern United States.
Quorum of the Twelve
In the summer of 1834, Johnson marched with the Zion"s Camp expedition which hoped to restore Latter Day Saints in Missouri to their lands in Jackson County.
Although the expedition was a failure, many of the veterans of the expedition were soon called to high leadership positions in the church. The chief duty of the apostles was to preside over missionary activities. Johnson continued to operate as a successful missionary from 1835 to 1837.
On September 4, 1834, Johnson was married to Sarah Susan Long.
Bank failure
The failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, a bank founded by church leaders, led to widespread dissent in 1837. Boynton explained that his difficulties with the church resulted from "the failure of the bank" which he had understood "was instituted by the will and revelations of God, and he had been told that it would never fail".
Despite these difficulties, Johnson and the others temporarily reconciled with church leaders and were restored to their apostleships on September 10, 1837, after which Johnson and his family moved to the Latter Day Saint settlement of Far West, Missouri. Excommunications
Meanwhile, schismatic strife between the loyalist faction and the dissenting faction continued to divide the church in Kirtland.
The schismatic strife followed them, but in Far West, the loyalists were able to keep control by excommunicating the leadership of the Missouri church—David Whitmer, John Whitmer, West. West. Phelps—along with Oliver Cowdery, Johnson, and others
