BIO: Gust Adolph JOHNSON, Clearfield County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja & Sally Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/ NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios: http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/1picts/swoope/swoope.htm _____________________________________________________________ From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr., Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, pages 814 - 816. _____________________________________________________________ GUST ADOLPH JOHNSON, a representative business man of Winburne, Pa., a practical printer, a photographer and a manufacturer of soft drinks, was born November 24, 1864, at Wenersborg, in Sweden, and is a son of John Erickson (son of John) and Sophia Johnson (Erickson) or Johanson, according to the Swedish methods of naming. The father of Mr. Johnson was born in Sweden in 1818 and was a farmer in his own land prior to coming to America with his wife in 1887, his death occurring in Cooper township, Clearfield county, in 1897. His wife was born in Sweden in 1825 and died in 1903. They had thirteen children born to them and the survivors are: Erick, who lives at Winburne; Matilda, who is the wife of Lars Danielson, of Lanse, Pa.; Carl, who resides at Sugar Grove, Warren county, Pa.; Emma, who is the wife of Andrew Leafgren, a grain dealer and mill owner at Winburne; and Gust Adolph. The first of the family to come to America was Mrs. Danielson, who located at McIntire, Lycoming county, Pa. Erick followed and still later Gust and Carl came also and all settled at McIntire, in 1882. In 1887 Gust A. Johnson returned to Sweden and in the following October came back to Pennsylvania, bringing with him his beloved parents and sister Emma. When Mr. Johnson first reached the United States he found that there was no opening for him except at the hardest kind of labor, but he was strong, willing and industrious and from the latter part of 1882 until May, 1883, he worked on the construction of the Pine Creek Railroad, and then went to Landrus, in Tioga county, and secured employment in a shingle mill and saw-mill and later worked again at railroad construction, this time on the Beech Creek Railroad. In 1884 he went to New York City and from there to Boston and other points. While in New York he was offered a position in a grocery store but the wages promised were too small for him to consider the proposition. He then accepted a position on a three-masted schooner running between New York and Boston, in the capacity of an able bodied seaman. The duties required of him in this capacity had not been previously explained to him and he very quickly came to the conclusion that life on the sea was not the carer for which Nature had intended him. He was so gratified to reach Boston in safety that he was even willing to demand no wages for the trip. After this experience, which, as Mr. Johnson relates it, is full of interest and humor, he found work in Boston and at East Long Meadow, Mass. In the fall of 1884 he came to Peale, Clearfield county, where coal mines had been opened and he secured employment and worked as a miner until the spring of 1885, when he went to the Allport mines, then back to Peale and again to Allport and later worked in a slope mine at Munson. In 1886 he came to Winburne and built one of the first three houses, Peter A. Strand and Nels Olson (both of whom are now deceased), having built the others. The first mine was opened in December, 1886, by the Somerville Company, and he was one of the first half-dozen men employed then. He continued mining until 1888. Mr. Johnson then started a job printing office and also the manufacturing of rubber stamps, which he continues. From 1895 until 1902, Mr. Johnson was also in the milling business. In 1901 he traveled from one end of Sweden to the other, over every railroad, in the meanwhile collecting 3,500 pictures of all the interesting places, public buildings and scenery. This collection was prepared as stereoscopic views and was the largest collection of that class of views from Sweden. For the past five years he has been a manufacturer of soft drinks, which he wholesales in the surrounding towns. He has sustained two serious fire losses, one in July and another in December, 1910, when his plant at Philipsburg was burned. He has been a resident of Clearfield county for twenty-seven years and of Winburne for twenty-six of these. He was naturalized at Clearfield in 1888 and no native- born American can show better citizenship. He is interested vitally in all public questions and as a Republican exerts considerable political influence and has served as precinct chairman for his local party organization. He was reared in the Lutheran faith. Mr. Johnson was married to Miss Anna Nelson, in 1891, at which time she was a resident of Chicago, Ill., her parents having died when she was a child. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson have five children: Walter, Ruth, Edith, Francis and Theodore.