Richard Mentor Johnson

Vice-President Richard Mentor Johnson and Boone County, Kentucky

A Non-Existent Link

(Essay in Progress)

by

James Duvall, M. A.

It has been alleged that Richard Mentor Johnson, who was Vice-president of the United States under Martin Van Buren, was a native of Boone County. This is incorrect. There were several Richard M. Johnsons in Boone County, but it can be easily documented that none of them were the vice-president.

There is a Richard M. Johnson, a farm laborer, who appears in the 1870 census for Verona. He was 23. He does not seem to have been vice-presidential timber. (See census page. He is number 24.) Johnson is a very common name in Boone County, and this leads to many confusions. For example, there is the vexed question of several Benjamin Johnsons. One researcher wrote to Mrs. Fitzgerald: "I wish all those Benjamin Johnsons would identify themselves. The more I know, the more confused I become." (6 April 1981) Mr. Fitzgerald writes of the Johnsons in a letter dated 29 May 1966, mentioning that the Boone county family was related to the vice-president, but neither he, or any other reputable Boone County historian has ever suggested that the vice-president, well-known to have been a native of Scott County all his life, ever lived in Boone County. There is another Richard M. Johnson, who was born about 1822, died in 1879.

There is no evidence to support the contention that Vice-president Richard M. Johnson had any connection to the Johnson-Buckner house that existed on the site of the present Justice Center; there is plenty of evidence to show he never lived here. To be sure, there is a Richard M. Johnson mentioned in the Boone County deed books, but he was buying and selling land after the vice-president was dead, good evidence they were not the same person.

This Richard M. Johnson, who was born about 1810, appears in the 1850 Federal Census (that is, the year the Vice-president died), as being 40 years old. (Link - Census) The next year this Richard M. Johnson appears in the Boone County deed books as inheriting a division of his father's lands, and also a deed from him, selling certain lands of his own. This should demonstrate that he was not the same person as the vice-president who was born in 1780 at Beargrass (near Louisville), and was a life-long resident of Scott County, Ky. (See Note 1 below)

Obituary for VP Richard M. Johnson
(Then serving in the Kentucky Senate from Scott County, Ky.)

The Richard M. Johnson born in 1810 was likely a relative of the vice-president, that I have not yet determined. He was the son of Robert and Mary ("Polly") Ross Johnson, who married in Boone County (See Marriage Book A, page 5). The father, Robert died in 1849 or possibly early 1850, and his widow and six children are listed in the Census. They divided his lands on Woolper Creek in January of 1851 (See Boone County Deed Book R, pages 131, et seq.)

The family of the Vice-president did have some Boone County connections. Cave Johnson, brother to Robert Johnson, the father of Richard, mentions his nephew in his Memoirs, an interesting account of life in early Kentucky, saying he lived in Scott County. He does not state that he ever lived in Boone County, which he would certainly have done had that been a fact. A family member, one of the Piatts, writing in 1881, recalled a family story, saying that once Col. Richard M. Johnson's regiment camped on the property of his uncle, Cave Johnson, during the campaign against Tecumseh. This happened during the War of 1812; the regiment arrived at Cave Johnson's at 10:00 A. M. 24 May 1813, and stayed until the 26th, when they crossed the Ohio River. Johnson issued the orders, but this does not actually prove that Col. Johnson was ever in Boone County, though it is likely he did visit at some time or other. (Journal of Robt. B. McAfee's Mounted Company, in Col. Richard M. Johnson's Regiment, from May 19th, 1813, including Orders)

Prof. Leland Winfield Meyer, Ph. D., of Georgetown University, Kentucky, wrote a huge biography of more than five hundred pages about Col. Johnson; there are two mentions of Boone County in the index, both are in relation to his election, and popular opinion about him, not referring to his ever being here.

Col. Robert Johnson (yes, we have a number of Robert Johnsons in Boone County, but none of them were this one), who lived from 1745 - 1815, was by 1812 one of the largest landowners in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The land grant registry on the Secretary of State's website shows 95 entries for Robert Johnson, though we cannot be certain that every one of them were for him. He has two filed in Fayette County on the Ohio River, one of them in the names of Robert and Benjamin Johnson for 1,106 acres, and may have been in present day Boone County. The other, which was likely in the boundaries of old Campbell County, including Boone, was for 8,115 acres. Robert's son, the brother of Richard, was Col. James Johnson (1774 - 1826); there are a total of 85 entries in the register in the name of James, probably at least most of them for this person. Only a few entries exist for Richard M. Johnson, possibly not the Vice-president at all, and there are none for any place close to Boone County. (See Military Land Warrant Note that the future vice-president was two or three years old in 1783 when this Warrant was Issued.)

The Boone County Court Orders for January 1810 mention a road running between the lands of Col. Robert Johnson, and Humphrey Marshall, another well known speculator, who lived in Frankfort; the two were political rivals. This road ran from Bushes Ferry on the Ohio to the Abner Gaines House. The Gaines house, built about 1807, was located just north of present day Walton. Robert Johnson sold some of his land to Benjamin Johnson in 1795, before Boone became a county (Campbell County Deed Book A, pages 228 - 230). This is probably the Benjamin Johnson who died in 1809, and who is buried in the cemetery on the farm that was later owned by Caroline Williams. Benjamin deeded some of this land to his son-in-law, Christopher Wilson, and his wife Lucy, in 1801 (Boone County Deed Book A, page 62). This land descended to Joseph F. Wilson, who sold it to our Boone County Richard M. Johnson (the one born in 1810) in 1847 (Boone County Deed Book, O, page 74). Perhaps it is this ironic twist that led to the confusion of the two Richards. This tract, or part of it, was sold by "R. M. Johnson" to John T. Johnson in 1851, during the year following the death of the Vice-presidential Richard. (See B. C. Deed Book R, page 137)

In the Atlas of 1883 there is on the map of Burlington a section of the town shown as the "Addition of Robert Johnson". Enough has already been said to show that this had no direct connection to the Vice-president's family. Col. Robert died in 1815, at the age of 70, at Fredericksburg, now Warsaw, Ky, and was buried at Great Crossings, near Georgetown.** (See note 2 below) Someone may have taken this information from the map and inferred that these were the same person, but that is not correct.

There is a house that was on the site of the present Justice Center that is sometimes referred to as the Johnson-Buckner house (see GIS historic sites), which is noted on the map in the 1883 Atlas as Dr. Grant's Residence; it was across the street from the jail. We may be certain that the addition was not by Col. Robert Johnson, and the house was neither built or owned by him. The Buckner part of the name is probably that of William H. Buckner who married Catharine A., a daughter of Absalom Graves, in 1843 (B. C. Marriage Book, A, page 53). There was certainly some connection between the Graves and Johnson families, but this exact connection I have not determined at this time.

I hope this is enough to disprove the idea that Vice-president Richard M. Johnson ever had a home in Boone County. There is much in Boone County's past of historical interest, enough that we do not need to manufacture incidents and connections that never existed. Our history must be based on good evidence and authentic documents, not speculation and hearsay. There are a number of local people interested in a local museum. If there is to be a Boone County Museum it should develop from the interests and initive of the people who feel that the history of our county is an intrinsic part of our own heritage, not handed to us as a gift of the government.

Notes:

* Note 1. - Col. Johnson was the proprietor of "White Sulphur Springs", a popular resort and watering place, and of the Choctaw Indian Academy, which he ran for the government, with the help of Thomas Henderson, grandfather of Emma Rouse Lloyd. (note - photo of the original school building is in "Kentucky Stories" by Byron Crawford Paducah, Ky: Turner Pub., 1994.)

** Note 2. - Warsaw began in 1798 as a landing on the Ohio River. The town was founded in 1805 by Colonel Robert Johnson, who surveyed and built a road there from his home in Scott County. Colonel Johnson and Henry Yates purchased 200 acres, in 1814, which was to be named Fredericksburg, after Johnson's hometown in Virginia. By 1815, the town plat was complete. The Town extended from the River to Market Street and included 172 numbered lots, each of which was 28 1/2 by 99 feet. Note that Gyspy M. Gray says in her History of Gallatin County, Kentucky (Covington: Kentucky Historical Societies, 1968), p. 37, that the town was named after Adolphus Fredrick, an emigrant from Pennsylvania, who had settled there at an early date; and this may be the origin of the name instead. The name of the town was changed to Warsaw 12 Dec 1831 by enactment of the Kentucky Legislature. It is said the new name was suggested by someone fond of the book Thaddeus of Warsaw by then-popular novelist Jane Porter.

****

Richard M. Johnson - Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography

Prof. Leland Winfield Meyer, Ph. D., of Georgetown University, Kentucky.

Meyer, Leland Winfield. "The Life and Times of Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky". New York: Columbia University Press, 1932; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967. [over 500 pages]

Meyer, Leland Winfield. "Colonel Robert Johnson, a Pioneer Leader in Education and Religion." Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society

Census Records.

Boone County Deeds.

Boone County Court Orders. 1810.

Johnson Family File. Boone County Public Library.

Fitzgerald Letters.

1883 Atlas

Robert B. McAfee Journal. Internet.

Boone County Historic Structures

Kentucky Secretary of State. Kentucky Land Office. Military Registers & Land Records. Revolutionary War Warrants. Revolutionary War Warrants Database
http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/military/revwar/

Undated Typescript. "An Article by Mr. Piatt of North Bend, Ohio, in 1881" (Johnson Family File. BCPL) 7 pages. Boone History