TN-DATA-L Archives

Archiver > TN-DATA > 2005-10 > 1130260434


From: Archives <>
Subject: Tn-Montgomery Co. Bios (Johnson)
Date: 25 Oct 2005 17:13:54 -0000


Montgomery County TN Archives Biographies.....Johnson, Boyd 1870 -
************************************************
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/tn/tnfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher 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

File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tn/montgomery/bios/johnson189nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/tnfiles/

File size: 10.7 Kb


This thread: