Marshall County KS Archives Biographies.....Johnson, Herman 1847 - 
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Author: Emma E. Forter (1917)

HERMAN JOHNSON.

    Herman Johnson, one of Marshall county's substantial pioneer farmers and the
proprietor of a fine farm in section 2 of Vermillion township, where he has made
his home for nearly forty years, is a native of the far-away kingdom of Norway,
but has been a resident of this country ever since the days of his young
manhood. He was born on a farm near the city of Christiania, Norway, February
24, 1847, son and eldest of the seven children of P. J. and Karen Johnson,
natives of that country, who spent all their lives there, the former, who died
in 1915, living to the great age of ninety years.

    Reared on the home farm in his native Norway, Herman Johnson remained at
home until after attaining his majority, when, in 1868, he came to the United
States and proceeded on out to Minnesota, whence so many of his countrymen had
preceded him, and there he became engaged as a member of a railway construction
crew. In 1871, at Preston, Minnesota, Mr. Johnson married Lottie Nevins, of
Elyria, Ohio, and presently went with his wife to Elyria, in the vicinity of
which city, in Lorain county, he became engaged in farming and was thus engaged
there for six years, at the end of which time, in 1877, he came to Kansas on a
bit of a prospecting trip and bought a tract of one hundred and twenty acres in
section 2 of Vermillion township, this county, and in the spring of the
following year, 1878, brought his family out here and settled on the farm, where
he ever since has made his home and which he had developed into one of the
best-improved and most highly cultivated farms in that part of the county. The
land for which he paid seven dollars an acre is now well worth one hundred and
twenty-five dollars an acre and he has never regretted the choice which caused
him to settle in Marshall county. In addition to his general farming, Mr.
Johnson has long given considerable attention to the raising of live stock and
has done very well. He has some particularly fine Percheron stock on his place
and formerly exhibited his horses at the local fairs. He has given much
attention to this line of stock and has done much to improve the strain of
horseflesh in his neighborhood.

    Mr. Johnson has been twice married. His first wife, Lottie Nevins, whom he
married in Minnesota, died at her home in this county in 1895, leaving six
children, namely: Gertrude W., who is a trained nurse, now living at Carrollton,
Missouri; Grace, wife of Doctor Olson, of Clay Center, this state; Karina, who
is a clerk in a dry-goods store at Manhattan, Kansas ; Edward S., who is engaged
in the hardware and agricultural-implement business at Rockford, Minnesota; Carl
O., who is a graduate architect and is now engaged as a building contractor at
Clay Center, and Mina, a graduate nurse, who married Lewis Rea and is now living
on a farm near Carrollton, Missouri.

    On October 14, 1909, Mr. Johnson married, secondly, Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth
(Wharton) Richards, of Olney, Illinois, widow of Henry Richards, whom she
married at Olney in 1894 and who died in 1900. Mrs. Johnson was born in Indiana
on December 18, 1858, a daughter of Joseph and Catherine Wharton, natives of
that same state, who moved to Illinois in 1859. Joseph Wharton served as a
soldier of the Union during the Civil War, a member of a company in an Illinois
regiment of volunteer infantry, and during that period of service was captured
by the enemy and was held in Libby Prison for thirteen months and fourteen days.
Both he and his wife spent their last days in Illinois, the latter dying in 1885
and the former living until 1892. It was at Olney, Illinois, that Sarah
Elizabeth Wharton grew to womanhood and there she married Henry Richards, who
died six years later, without issue. Some time after her husband's death she
came out to Kansas on a visit to friends and here she met and married Mr.
Johnson. The Johnsons have a very pleasant home and take a proper part in the
general social activities of their home community. They are members of the
Presbyterian church and Mr. Johnson is a member of the Frankfort lodge of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Daughters of Rebekah, of which
latter lodge Mrs. Johnson also is a member. Mr. Johnson is a Republican and has
given his earnest attention to the political affairs of his adopted country ever
since acquiring citizenship here, but has never been a seeker after public office.



Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

History of Marshall County, Kansas: its people, industries, and institutions
by
Emma E. Forter

Indianapolis, Ind.: B.F. Bowen & Co. (1917)


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