BIO: Ovid Frazer JOHNSON, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 231.
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  JOHNSON, OVID FRAZER, was born in the year 1807, in the Valley of 
Wyoming, near the town of Wilkes-Barre; died February, 1854, in 
Washington, D. C.  He was descended from some of the early settlers of 
that historical locality.  His paternal grandfather, the Rev. Jacob 
Johnson, was a superior linguist and man of rich education and culture; 
a graduate of Yale College, he took his degree as early as 1740, with 
distinguished honor.  In 1778 he was called from his home in 
Connecticut to reside in Wilkes-Barre.  After that terrible event, the 
massacre of Wyoming, he assisted Colonel Dennison with his advice and 
influence, in protecting the inhabitants that remained, and the 
original articles of capitulation were in the proper handwriting of Mr. 
Johnson.  In quite a lengthy biography, written of him in the year 1836 
by the historian of Wyoming, Charles Miner, appears this:  "When the 
Revolutionary war broke out, Mr. Johnson took his stand early and 
firmly in behalf of freedom.  And through the whole contest he rendered 
the utmost service in his power, which, from his learning, talents, and 
the respect he commanded, was very considerable.  A son, born while the 
animated discussions preceding the Revolution were going on and the 
elder Pitt was thundering his anathemas against ministers for their 
tyrannous conduct to the Colonies, Mr. Johnson named Jehoiada Pitt. . . 
.  Jehoiada is sometime since deceased, but a son of his with 
hereditary genius is winning his way to enviable distinction."  The 
latter is the subject of this sketch. At the close of his early 
education, in which he had as school and classmates many who afterwards 
rose to positions of eminence and distinction, he commenced the study 
of law with John N. Conyngham, of Wilkes-Barre, afterwards Judge 
Conyngham.  He was duly admitted to the bar and entered into the 
practice of the law at that place.  In 1833 he removed to Harrisburg, 
and there married.  In 1839, at the early age of thirty-two years, his 
talent secured for him the appointment as attorney general of 
Pennsylvania.  In 1842, his term of office having expired, he was 
reappointed and served through a second term until 1845.  As an orator, 
Mr. Johnson was brilliant; as a lawyer, he had superior abilities, and 
somewhat of a wide-known reputation, being frequently employed to try 
cases in different States of the Union.  It may be here remarked that, 
in addition to Mr. Johnson's legal ability, he had a high reputation as 
a political writer.  He was the author of the celebrated "Governor's 
Letters," published during the administration of Governor Ritner, and 
which purported to give the ludicrous side to the political characters 
then figuring in the politics of the State.  Mr. Johnson married Jane 
Alricks, daughter of James Alricks.  She was born at 1808 at Oakland 
Mills, in Lost Creek Valley, now Juniata county, Pa., and died December 
21, 1891, at Harrisburg, Pa.  Of their children, Ovid Frazer Johnson is 
a prominent lawyer at the Philadelphia bar.