Peter W. Johnson Biography


	This biography appears on page 1877 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	PETER W. JOHNSON was born January 6, 1829, in Vassenwangen 
province, Norway, in which country his parents, John B. and Christi 
(Olson) Johnson, spent their entire lives as farming people. The 
subject passed the days of his boyhood and youth in his native land and 
there worked at the shoemaker's trade. At the age of eighteen years he 
decided to try his fortune in America and on reaching this country 
first located in Chicago, where he worked in a lumber yard for six 
years, remaining there until 1859. The following two years were spent 
in Dane county, Wisconsin, and in 1861 he came to South Dakota and took 
up a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land in Yankton county, 
for which he paid the government price of one dollar and a quarter per 
acre, and is today the owner of a fine farm of three hundred acres and 
has sold a tract of eighty acres for sixty-five dollars per acre. 
Although he carries on general farming he gives considerable attention 
to the raising of stock, being a breeder of cattle, and he also keeps 
good horses and hogs.