Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/489

Rh of the Dutch church and Church of England, chiefly at Albany and in the city of New York. He was not so popular as his father, being less so- cial and less acquainted with human nature. As a youth he spent some time in England, during which he was knighted by George III. as a compli- ment to his father. Hence both bore titles at the same time. He accompanied his father on several of his expeditions, and saw in his youth consider- able militia service. Soon after the close of the French war he was sent at the head of a body of militia and Indians to arrest Capt. Bull, who had been charged with stirring up war among the In- dian tribes, in which enterprise he was successful. At his father's death, in 1774, he succeeded him in bis baronetcy and estates, as well as in his post of major-general of militia, to the latter of which he was appointed in November, 1774. In the spring of 1776, learning that Gen. Philip Schuyler was about to seize his person, he fled with about 300 of his Scotch Tory tenants through the woods into Canada, reaching Montreal only after the severest hardships. He did not, however, as has been charged, violate his parole by this flight, as a letter from Gen. Schuyler to himself, in Peter Force's "Archives," discharging him from his parole proves conclusively. On arriving in Canada he was commissioned colonel, raised two battalions known as the " Queen's royal greens," and in Au- gist, 1777, at their head, under command of Col. arry St. Leger, took part in the latter's invest- ment of Fort Stanwix, now Rome, N. Y. A de- tachment of his corps took part in the battle of Oriskany, on 6 Aug., 1777, a few miles east of that fort, with Gen. Nicholas Herkimer (q. v.), who was approaching with the design of raising that siege. The siege was afterward resumed, but on the ap- proach of Arnold to the relief of the fort, on 22 Aug., St. Leger and Johnson fled in haste and con- fusion to Canada, and their Indian allies, fearing to meet Arnold, deserted them. In May, 1780, he desolated Cherry valley with fire and tomahawk. and in October of the same year, with Brant and Cornplanter, he made a raid into the Mohawk val- ley. At Fox's Mills they fought Gen. Henry K. Van Rensselaer, both sides retreating by different ways at the close of the action. At the end of the Revolution, Sir John, whose estate had been con- fiscated by the New York act of attainder, retired to Canada, receiving from the crown the appoint- ment of superintendent-general of Indian affairs in British North America. He went to England in 1784, residing during his stay at a country-seat at Twickenham, but returned the following year and made his home in Canada. He was the last pro- vincial grand master of the Masonic order for the colony of New York, and was a member of the provincial council of Canada, but was never gov- ernor of that province as has been stated. He mar- ried, 30 June, 1773, Mary, daughter of John Watts, of New York, of whose loveliness Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, has left us a charming pen-portrait in her " Memoirs of an American Lady " (Albany, 1876). By her he had eight sons and three daughters. His last child, an unmarried daughter, died in London, England, 1 Jan., 1868. Of the sons, seven were in the British army and one served for a time in the British navy. His eldest son, William, a colonel in the British regular army, married Susan, daugh- ter of Col. Stephen de Lancey, of New York. In appearance Sir John was imposing, well propor- tioned, and muscular. His complexion was fair, his eyes dark blue and penetrating. He was par- ticularly fond of children, a characteristic that seems at variance with the shocking cruelties that were perpetrated with his alleged consent by his Indian followers at the Cherry valley massacre. He was succeeded in his title by his son, Sir Adam Gordon, who, dying in 1843 childless, was in turn succeeded in the title by his nephew. Sir William George, the present baronet (1887), who resides at Mount Johnson, near Montreal. — Sir William's nephew, Guy, superintendent of Indian affairs, b. in County Meath, Ireland, in 1740; d. in London, England* 5 March, 1788. Upon the refusal of Sir John Johnson to accept the succession to his father's dignities and offices in connection with the Indians, they were conferred upon his cousin, Guy, who exercised them from Sir William's death and throughout the Revolutionary war, a circumstance which has caused the careers of the two cousins frequently to be confounded. He married his cousin, Mary, a daughter of Sir William, and dur- ing the latter's life was his deputy superintendent of Indian affairs. He served against the French in 1757, and again in 1759, when he commanded a company of rangers under Sir Jeffrey Amherst. He built for his residence a substantial stone man- sion, which is still standing near Amsterdam, N. Y., and known as " Guy park." At the beginning of the public excitement in 1775 the park was abandoned by its owner, who, accompanied by his family and a few faithful Indians, fled by way of Oswego to Montreal, whence he embarked for Eng- land. Returning the following year, he remained several months in New York, during which he was one of the British officers who managed the John street theatre in that city. In 1778 he was with Brant in his raids upon the Mohawk valley. In October, 1779, he was attainted and his estates confiscated by the New York colonial assembly.

JOHNSON, William, law-reporter, b. in Middle- town, Conn., about 1770 ; d. in New York city in July, 1848. He was graduated at Yale in 1788, studied law. and was admitted to the bar. From 1806 till 1823 he served as reporter of the supreme court of New York, and from 1814 till 1823 he held the same relation to the New York court of chan- cery. Judge Story says : " No lawyer can ever ex- press a better wish for his country's jurisprudence than that it may possess such a chancellor [Kent] and such a reporter " [Johnson]. Judge Kent dedi- cated his "Commentaries" to him, and Judge William A. Duer wrote in 1857: "Johnson was a man of pure and elevated character, an able lawyer, a classical scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian." He received the degree of LL. D. from Hamilton college in 1819, and from Princeton in 1820. He published a translation of D. A. Azuni's " Sistema Universale dei principii del diritto maritimo dell' Europa " (2 vols., New York, 1806) ; and also issued " New York Supreme Court Reports, 1799- 1803" (3 vols.. 1808-'12); "New York Chancery Reports, 1814-'23," and "Digest of Cases in the Supreme Court of New York" (2 vols., Albany, 1825 ; 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1838).

JOHNSON, William, jurist, b. in Charleston, S. C., 27 Dec. 1771; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 11 Aug., 1834. His father, William Johnson, was of an English family which settled in Holland after the revolution in 1660, assumed the name of Jansen, and emigrated to New Amsterdam. By resuming its English name, on the cession of the colony to the Duke of York, the family lost the benefit of the grant to Jansen, within the limits of which a part of the city of New York is now built. William removed to Charleston, and Gen. Christopher Gadsden said he first set the ball of revolution rolling in South Carolina. He represented the city in the general assembly of the