Montgomery County TN Archives Biographies.....Johnson, Boyd 1870 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com October 25, 2005, 5:13 pm

Author: Will T. Hale

   BOYD JOHNSON. One of the representative members of the bar of Montgomery

county, Mr. Johnson is engaged in successful general practice at Clarksville,

the judicial center of the county, and he is a native son of the city that is

now his home, so that, by reason of his popularity and professional prestige,

there can be in his case no application of the scriptural aphorism that "a

prophet is not without honor save in his own country." Further than this, he is

a scion of a family whose name has been one of prominence in connection with

civic, military and public affairs in Tennessee since the early days when this

state was constituted as the "Territory of the United States South of the Ohio."

Hon. Cave Johnson, grandfather of him whose name initiates this review, was born

on the ancestral homestead, three miles east of Springfield, Robertson county,

Tennessee, on the 11th of January, 1793, about three years prior to the

admission of the state to the Union. His parents, like the majority of the other

very early settlers of the state, came from North Carolina, of which Tennessee

was originally a part. Hon. Cave Johnson, one of the most distinguished figures

in the history of Tennessee, was afforded the advantages of an academy situated

about two miles east of Nashville, and in 1807 he entered Mount Pleasant

Academy, on Station Camp creek, in Sumner county, where he was prepared for

college. He next entered Cumberland College, which was later developed into the

present Nashville University, where he completed his academic or literary

education. In 1812 he began the study of law under the preeeptorship of William

W. Cook, one of the prominent members of the bar of the state in the early days,

and in the following year he joined his father, Brig. Gen. Thomas Johnson, as

deputy brigade quartermaster in a command that was prominent in the War of 1812.

He participated in the campaign of 1813-14, principally against belligerent

Indians, who were finally subdued, and he then returned home and resumed the

study of law. He was admitted to the bar before the close of the same year and

soon gained distinctive precedence in his profession, as is clearly indicated by

the fact that in 1817 the legislature of the state elected him to the important

office of attorney general of Tennessee. In this office he made an admirable

record and came prominently before the people of the state as a man of great

resourcefulness and high intellectuality, so that he gained secure vantage place

in popular confidence and esteem. In 1828 he was elected representative in

congress, in which he showed broad and effective statesmanship, with the result

that he was re-elected in 1831 and again in 1835. He was defeated in 1837, owing

to purely political exigencies, and then resumed the practice of his profession

at Clarksville, Tennessee. In 1839 public favor again made him representative in

congress, and thereafter he continued in service in this capacity without

interruption until 1845, when President Polk called him to the executive cabinet

in the post of postmaster general of the United States. In this office, as in

all other public service, he showed remarkable facility in handling interests

and affairs of the highest importance, and his administration was admirable and

altogether acceptable.



   In 1854, about six years after his retirement from the office last quoted,

Mr. Johnson was elected president of the Bank of Tennessee, and he retained this

position for a number of years prior to his death, which occurred at

Clarksviile, this state, on the 23d of November, 1866. He wedded Mrs. Elizabeth

Brunson, daughter of Isaac and Martha (Norfleet) Dortch, sterling pioneers of

Tennessee, and he survived her by a number of years. Of their three sons the

eldest was James Hickman Johnson, father of him to whom this sketch is

dedicated. Thomas Dixon Johnson, M. D., the second son, served for many years as

surgeon in the Egyptian army, with the rank of major, and after a distinguished

career in the Orient he is now living, in active practice, in Clarksville,

Tennessee. He received from the Khedive of Egypt the decoration of the order of

Medjeddie. Polk Grundy Johnson, the youngest son, served with distinction as an

officer in the Confederate army, was a lawyer by profession and for a number of

years clerk and master of Montgomery county, Tennessee. He died in New York City

while prosecuting a lawsuit, July 28, 1888.



Maj. James Hickman Johnson was born at Clarksville, Montgomery county,

Tennessee, on the 8th of October, 1840, and after prelims nary study in Stewart

College, in his native place, he entered the Cumberland University, at Lebanon,

where he was a student in the law department at the time of the inception of the

war between the states. His loyalty to the Confederacy was of the most ardent

type and his youthful enthusiasm was forthwith manifested by his returning home

and joining a company which had been raised for the Confederate service by Capt.

William A. Forbes. This command became Company A of the Fourteenth Tennessee

Infantry, and soon after being mustered in young Johnson was elected lieutenant

of Company G of his regiment. Later he was promoted to the captaincy of his

company and finally was commissioned major of his regiment, which he commanded

as such in many important engagements and in which he made a most gallant

record. In the battle at Petersburg, Virginia, on the 2d of April, 1865, he was

in command of his regiment, and he continued at its head on the march to

Appomattox, where, as a part of General Lee's army, he surrendered his command

on the 9th of the same month, at the close of the long and sanguinary struggle

between the states of the North and the South. He served throughout the entire

course of the war and was wounded at the battle of Cedar Bun, on the 9th of

August, 1863, though not long incapacitated for active duty. After the war Major

Johnson returned to Clarksville and the greater part of his active career

thereafter was one of close identification with the work of his profession, in

which he became one of the leaders in this section of the state. He was a man of

steadfast integrity and exalted principles, was broad in his intellectual ken,

and honored his profession and his native state by his worthy life and services.

He was a prominent figure in the councils of the Democratic party, and his

religious faith was that of the Episcopal church, of which he was a communicant,

and his widow also is a communicant. He continued to maintain his home in

Clarksville until his death, which occurred on the 28th of October, 1880, and

his name is held in lasting honor in the city which was so long his place of

residence and in which his circle of friends was coextensive with that of his

acquaintances.



   In the year 1867 was solemnized the marriage of Major Johnson to Miss Mary

Boyd, who was born at Springfield, Tennessee, and who is a daughter of George C.

and Virginia C. (Conrad) Boyd, her father having been one of the most

distinguished members of the Tennessee bar and having been a resident of

Clarksville, Tennessee, at the time of his death. Mrs. Johnson still resides in

Clarksville, and none of the gracious gentlewomen of this county has a wider

circle of devoted friends than this well known and loved one. After the death of

her honored husband she was appointed postmaster at Clarksville, under the

administration of President Cleveland, and she retained this office four years,

her regime having been marked by careful and effective service which met with

unqualified popular approval. Major and Mrs. Johnson became the parents of two

sons, and the elder, Cave, was born on the 24th of July, 1868, and died on the

first of August of the following year.



   Boyd Johnson was born at Clarksville on the 12th of May, 1870, and his early

educational discipline was obtained under the direction of private tutors.

Thereafter he was a student for two years in Cumberland University, at Lebanon,

this state, (graduated with LL. B. degree), and the last year was post graduate

course. Boyd Johnson before entering upon the practice of his profession took

the summer course in law under the learned and distinguished Jno. B. Minor of

the law department of historic old University of Virginia, at Charlottesville.

He forthwith initiated the practice of his profession at Clarksville, and here

he has since continued his labors with all of zeal and ability, with the result

that he now has a substantial and representative practice. His professional work

was interrupted by two years' service in the United States Volunteers,

incidental to the Spanish-American war. He was enlisted as private in Company H,

First Tennessee, and remained in that position until he was made sergeant major

in the First Tennessee Regiment, United States Volunteers, and his service was

principally in the Philippine islands, where he had his full quota of experience

in military conflicts with the native insurrectionists. He has a congressional

medal awarded to him as a member and officer of the last southern regiment to be

mustered out of the United States service after the close of the war, and in his

service he ably upheld the high military prestige of the family name.



     In politics Mr. Johnson is aligned as an ardent and uncompromising advocate

of the principles and policies for which the Democratic party stands sponsor,

and he has given effective service in behalf of its cause. He is affiliated with

the Kappa Sigma fraternity of Cumberland University, and is a communicant of the

Protestant Episcopal church, as a member of the parish of Trinity church, in his

home city. Under the administration of his mother Mr. Johnson served as deputy

postmaster of Clarksville, prior to entering the law school. He is a bachelor

and resides with his widowed mother in the old family homestead, which has for

many years given charming exemplification of true southern hospitality.



Additional Comments:
From:



A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in

commerce, industry and modern activities

by Will T. Hale

Chicago:  Lewis Pub. Co.,  1913

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