JOHN W. JOHNSON

FROM: The History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887).  P. 712.

          John W. Johnson, farmer, born in Hamilton County in 1850, is the eldest son of Capt. Charles A. and Nancy C. (Irby) Johnson.  The father, born in Hamilton County in 1829, and the son of Robt. Johnson, a native of North Carolina who went to Kentucky where he married and became an early pioneer of Franklin County, Ky., but was driven back by the Indians.  In a few years, however, he went to Hamilton County, where he spent his life as a farmer.  (See the biography of Charles A. Johnson, the father, elsewhere).  Our subject was reared at home with a good common-school education.  In November, 1871, he married Nancy L., daughter of Benjamin W. and Sidney Harrelson, born in January 1854 in Franklin County.  Their seven children are Charles W., Benjamin W., Robert E., John Arthur, Lorana J., Laura A. and Nancy E.  From 1875 to 1882 he was in Kansas, but has since lived on his present farm of 161 acres of finely improved land seven miles southeast of McLeansboro.  He is becoming one of the first farmers of the county.  Politically he is a Republican, first voting for Grant.  He is a member of the F. M. B. A.