Bio of JOHNSON, Joseph Henry (b.1852), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical
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Vol III, pg 180-184
JOSEPH HENRY JOHNSON
Scholars conversant with our national history have had occasion in the last few
years to point out with increasing emphasis the importance in our national
develop­ment of the migration from New England into the Mississippi valley that
began shortly after the Revolutionary war and continued to some extent
throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century. Likewise, in the last
decade or two, literary students have been finding increasing evidence that the
Puritan movement in the United States today centers not in Boston or about the
learned halls of Harvard, but rather in the state university of one of the
leading commonwealths of the corn belt. The person familiar with these phases of
our development will not be surprised, therefore, to find living in mid-western
cities men and women whose genealogical record equals that of the Adamses,
Lodges or Lowells in the purity of its New England origins. One of these
transplanted Puritans was the late Joseph Henry Johnson of Minneapolis.
Joseph Henry Johnson was born in Calais, Maine, on the 17th of January, 1852, a
son of the Rev. Charles Henry Augustine Johnson and his second wife, who bore
the maiden name of Naomi Ann Moore. Both of his parents were lineal descendants
of early New England Puritans. One of his paternal ancestors was the Rev.
Stephen Bachiler (or Batchelder), founder of the town of Hampton, New Hampshire,
and the first minister in the town. Another forefather was the Rev. Robert
Yallalee, who was ordained by Bishop Coke in 1796, for the Foulah Mission,
Africa, and with others went out to Sierra Leone. Owing to trouble in this
region the missionaries were forced to leave and shortly the Rev. Mr. Yallalee
came to New England, where he Joined the ranks of the Methodist itinerants,
riding circuits in Massachusetts and Maine. He died on July 12, 1846, in his
seventy-eighth year, at Rome, Maine. In Revolutionary times one, Joseph Johnson,
Sr., and his son, Deacon Joseph Johnson, Jr., of Hampton, New Hampshire, signed
the Association Test of New Hampshire, by virtue of which act their descendants
are eligible to membership in the Sons of the American Revolution and the
Daughters of the American Revolution, and among these descendants the sub­ject
of this sketch was numbered.
When he was five years old Joseph Henry Johnson came to Minneapolis with his
mother and stepfather, Justin Dow, arriving in this city in April, 1857. At the
age of fifteen he was left entirely upon his own resources by the death of his
mother and went to live in the home of the late Judge R. F. E. Cornell while he
completed his public school education and attended business college. He learned
the undertaking business, with which he was connected throughout his mature life
and he bequeathed his well appointed establishment to his son, Arthur Eugene,
who is now continuing a business that has been in existence for over fifty
years.
As was to be expected of a man who came from a family that had contributed many
able men to the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, Mr. Johnson was
actively associated with the work of that denomination throughout his life. His
mother was one of the original members of the Brooklyn, Hennepin county,
Methodist Epis­copal church, which still possesses the first class book bearing
her name. When he first came to Minneapolis as a little boy of five, Joseph H.
Johnson attended the Sunday school of the "Little White Church Around the
Corner." In 1868 he joined the Cen­tenary Methodist Episcopal church and later
belonged to the Wesley Methodist Epis­copal church, the outgrowth of the
Centenary congregation. He possessed a beautiful voice and sang in the Centenary
choir for years.
Mr. Johnson was initiated into the Masonic fraternity in 1885, in which he took
an active part. He was a charter member and worshipful master of Minnesota
Lodge, No. 224, A. F. & A. M.; and also senior grand deacon of The Most
Worshipful Grand Lodge, A. F. & A. M. of Minnesota. As one of the early settlers
he belonged to the Territorial Pioneers.
Mr. Johnson was married on the 15th of February, 1877, to Miss Louise A. Lyon,
daughter of Walter and Maria Antoinette (Giddings) Lyon. Mrs. Johnson was born
in Herrick township, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1853, and
traces her descent from the Puritan families of New England through both
branches of her family. Two of her maternal ancestors, John Deming and Richard
Treat, are named in the famous charter granted to Connecticut by King Charles of
England. Through the services of her maternal great grandfather, Captain Jabez
Deming, in the Revolu­tionary war, and those of her paternal great grandfather,
William Bishop, she has been admitted to membership in the Daughters of the
American Revolution. Mrs. Johnson is a graduate of the Mansfield State Normal
School of Pennsylvania and of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,
class of 1890. In the early '70s, prior to her mar­riage, she taught in the
Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington schools of Minneapolis.
During her long residence in this city Mrs. Johnson has played a leading part in
its club and social life. She was Worthy Grand Matron of the Order of the
Eastern Star of Minnesota, in 1895, and holds a life membership in the General
Grand Chapter, the controlling body of that order. She is charter member, No. 2,
of the Minneapolis Colony of New England Women, in which she served as chairman
of the first constitu­tion committee. In 1913 she was the regent of the
Minneapolis Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, one of the
largest and most influential chapters in the Northwest, and went as a delegate
from this chapter to the national convention of this society at Washington, D.
C., in 1917 and 1920. To Mrs. Johnson, also, was accorded the honor of naming
the addition to the city of Minneapolis known as Wyoming Park.
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Johnson were the parents of two sons: Walter Henry and
Arthur Eugene. The elder son is a lieutenant colonel in the Regular United
States army. On the 7th of May, 1898, he enlisted as a sergeant in Company F,
Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteers, with which he served throughout the
Spanish-American war. He was mustered out of this service as first lieutenant in
October, 1899, and immediately en-listed in the Forty-second United States
Volunteers, as first lieutenant in Company A. With this unit he saw many months
of service in the Philippines. He was commis­sioned second lieutenant in Company
A, Eighth Infantry, United States army, on October 8, 1901, and went with his
company to St. Michael, Alaska, in July, 1902. The following September he was
ordered to the Line Class at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from which he graduated
in July, 1903. He served under General Pershing in the punitive expedition to
Mexico, in 1916, and was on the general staff overseas during the World war.
There he was awarded the medal of the Order of Leopold, by Belgium and decorated
with the rank of an officer of the Legion of Honor, by General Louis Collard,
chief of the French High Commission to the United States at Washington, D. C.
Lieutenant Colonel Walter H. Johnson graduated from the staff class at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, June 23, 1922, and was one of nine of his class to be
ordered to the war college at Washington, D. C., for further work. Later in 1923
he was detailed as a member of the General Staff Corps, war department,
Washington, D. C.
The second son, Arthur Eugene Johnson, served for twelve years with the First
Infantry, Minnesota National Guard, and later was commissioned major in the
Fourth Infantry, Minnesota National Guard. He is a member of the Minnesota
Society, Sons of the American Revolution, and the Old Colony Club. His religious
affiliations are with the Wesley Methodist Episcopal church and fraternally he
is Senior Warden of Minnesota Lodge, No. 224, A. F. & A. M., also a member of
Minneapolis Consistory, No. 2, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry,
Southern Jurisdiction of the United States; Minneapolis Mounted Commandery, No.
23, Knights Templars; and Zuhrah Temple, A. A. 0. N. M. S. He also belongs to
the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, Minneapolis Lodge, No. 44, of which
organization he is cbairman of the board of trustees. His name is included among
the members of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts. Since early manhood he has
been actively associated with his father in business and upon the death of the
latter, in 1915, assumed the management of the Johnson Undertaking Company, thus
continuing the business established in 1867.