In the 1875 census, Charles Johnson is 21, living in Brandon, Franklin County, next to Philander Johnson and the Duketts in the home of Jesse Corey. He is listed as a stepson and a guide.185

In the 1880 census, Charles Johnson is 25, living in Brandon, Franklin County, next to George Johnson, Philander Johnson, and John and Nancy Dukett (Ducatt). With him is wife Ellen, 29, and son Lee, age 1. Charles is a hunter’s guide. They’re not far from Jesse and Martha Corey.24

In the 1894 Annual Report of the New York State Forest Commission, a Charles Johnson is listed among Fulton Chain Guides; however, there was another Charles Johnson from Utica/Syracuse

In 1900 Federal Census, living in North Elba, head of household (Hellen, Eugene, Guy, Jessie), next to his mother Martha and her stepson Charles Correy [sic]. Listed parents’ place of birth as New York. Farmer, could read and write, owned his farm without a mortgage. He was aged 46 and had been married for 23 years.10

In the 1910 census, Charles H. Johnson was living in Keene (not far from Charles N. Corey and Charles H.’s mother, Martha), with Ellen, Eugene R., Guy R., Jesse R. on Edmunds Hill Road. He was 58, had been married 36 years. He was a farmer, owned his farm (mortgaged), could read and write. He gave his and his parents’ birthplaces as New York. Ellen was 59, also gave her birthplace and her parents’ as New York, and was listed as a housewife. She could read and write, and had had 4 children, all still alive. Eugene was 25, single, a laborer on a farm, could read and write, and had not been out of work in the previous year. Guy was 22, single, a laborer on a farm, could read and write, and had not been out of work in the previous year. Jesse was 20, single, a laborer on a farm, could read and write, and had not been out of work in the previous year.61

I don’t find an entry for Charles or George in the on-line 1870 census.

A Charles Johnson is listed in Bromley’s “Guides of the Adirondacks” as a guide on the Fulton Chain, according to a Franklin County guide resource.
A Charles Johnson is listed as a Fulton Chain guide in the Annual Report of the Forest Commission, 1893, Vol. 1., p. 343 (http://hamilton.nygenweb.net/history/AdirondackGuides.html) (PDF file in Johnson files). As a member of the Adirondack Guides Association, he was committed at that time to a uniform daily rate of $3/day plus ordinary expenses; that was as much as twice what an ironworker or various other skilled laborers might have made at the time (according to a Pennsylvania report by the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Agriculture). I’m not certain this is the same Charles Johnson; there was another Charles Johnson from Utica/Syracuse who also worked as a guide.

Unfortunately the Johnsons are not listed as guides in Wallace’s sixth edition of “Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks” (1878), though the Coreys are listed there and in the 8th edition.

He is named as a defendant in the referee’s sale of Jesse Corey’s former land; see Charles N. Corey’s card.


Lake Placid News, Oct. 11, 1940, in a column about headlines of 25 years before (1915) lists an item (which scarcely bares repeating 25 years later): Albert Goyette of Montreal, chauffeur for J.P. Mullarkey, accompanied Charles Johnson here last Sunday. (Point and date unclear.) There are other references to Charles Johnson in this paper, but not clear if any of them are this Charles Johnson

A Charles Johnson attended Kenneth Peck’s funeral in 1950, which would have made him 96 at the time. Unlikely, as Ellen was listed as a widow in 1920.

Since she was listed as a widow, and their last home was Keene, I don’t know if he’s the same guide who is listed in 1926 as living in Syracuse, but the age, name and occupation are right.

In the 1875 NYS Census, Charles and George are listed as Jesse Corey’s stepsons, at ages 21 and 19.

Utica Morning Herald May 31, 1878:
Boonville, May 30. - George A. May, landlord of the Hulbert house, is the champion speckled trout fisherman. He came in from Brown’s Tract last night with Hon. R.H. Roberts and P.J. Casler, of Little Falls, and brought in what is said to be the largest speckled trout ever caught on the Fulton chain. It was 18 inches long, 12 in girth and weighed four pounds. This trout was unusually stocky in build. Charles Johnson brought in one caught by him on the rifts of the Moose river yesterday that was one-half inch longer than May’s but did not weigh within a pound as much.

Utica Sunday Journal, July 9, 1899:
Charles Johnson, a well known guide of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain, has returned to the woods after a brief sojourn at his home, 73 State street, this city [Utica].

(Note that in 1900 Charles was in the census in North Elba).

Nov. 18, 1909:
Crown Point:
Nov. 16 -
Charles Johnson of Cascadeville is the guest of his uncle, William Graham.186

Oswego Palladium-Times, April 28, 1926:
Willing to Try It Again
Charles Johnson, 71, now residing in Syracuse, and well known in this city, is one of the oldest trappers in the Fulton chain region of the Adirondacks, and has not missed a hunting season in [ ] years. He plans to return again next fall. He has eight children, 17 grandchildren and [3? 9?] great grandchildren.

Proof that my Johnsons were cousins to “Mother” Johnson’s family.
Tupper Lake Free Press, Thursday, July 21, 1938:

IN MEMORY OF “MOTHER JOHNSON”
Do you remember “Mother Johnson,” old timer?
Probably not. Mother Johnson, a kindly old soul whose ability to turn out miniature mountains of tasty “flapjacks” made the weary trip down the Raquette River into Tupper Lake waters something to be looked forward to by many an adventurous spirit back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, has been gone these 60-odd years. Probably in the hearts of only a few of the very old settlers is Mother Johnson’s memory kept fresh. In the books of such famous old pioneer Adirondack sportsmen as the Rev. W.H.H. (“Adirondack”) Murray, New England cleric, and S.R. Stoddard of Glens Falls, however, Mother Johnson’s name is preserved for all time.
The reason for this item lies in a letter received at the Free Press from a direct descendant of that grand old character – Mrs. Jennie Morehouse of Indian Lake, great-granddaughter of Mother Johnson. Mrs. Morehouse is 63 years of age, and she recalls many a colorful incident from her childhood at Axton. Her father, she says, shot several panthers in that sector in the early days. His grave, and those of her grandfather and grandmother, are at Raquette Falls, where stands the old Johnson barn – more than 80 years old, and put together, in pioneer fashion, with wooden pegs instead of nails. Nails were a rare and expensive commodity in the North Woods in the middle of the 19th century.
“My father’s name was Clark Farmer; my mother was Sylvia M. Johnson,” Mrs. Morehouse writes. “I was born at Axton. I had two cousins, Charley and George Johnson, who lived there 40 years ago – yes – 50. I wonder if the Johnson boys, or men, who go to Raquette Lodge would by any chance be Charley Johnson’s sons, or grandsons? George had no children. Charley’s oldest boy was named Leroy. I don’t recall the others; I was only 19, or around that, at the time.”
“I am 63 years old now, and my one desire is to see again the place where I spent my childhood,” Mrs. Morehouse writes. “That is why I am writing this letter. I want to take a trip to that dear old spot, and drop a line through between [sic] the logs of the old bridge where we used to cross the river on our way to Axton. I used to catch trout there with twine for fishline and a bent pin for a hook! I am wondering just how to get there – as we used to in the old days, by rowboat from Stony Creek, above Axton, or if there is a road so I can go by car. Please let me know if I should go in on the Wawbeek trail.”
With the passage of the half-century or more since Mrs. Morehouse lived there, it has become considerably easier to reach the old Johnson homesite near Raquette Falls, which lays claim to being the original “Phantom Falls” in the Rev. Murray’s exciting yarn. Today Mrs. Morehouse can travel by automobile from Indian Lake through Tupper Lake to Coreys – Axton, in her youth. A letter to George Morgan, proprietor of Raquette Falls Lodge, will undoubtedly result in arrangement to meet her near the Stony Creek bridge, and the remainder of the trip, about seven miles, must still be made by boat.
For the information of those of our readers who, like ourselves, arrived in the Adirondacks in a day when good highways and automobiles have replaced the guide-boat as a means of “getting places,” we can offer a little information about “Mother Johnson.” She moved, with her husband, to Raquette Falls in [illegible - 1860?]. Travel from Long Lake to Tupper was all by boat in those days, and it fell to Mother Johnson’s lot to feed the travelers, who invariably turned to her door while their boats were being dragged by ox-sled over the rough road around Raquette Falls carry. Mother Johnson became known far and wide for her pancakes, and many a man whose name was well-known throughout the country gratefully sampled her wares.
Mother Johnson died on January 27, 1875, after a short illness. Stoddard, in his volume “The Adirondacks,” printed in 1875, notes that “at the request of her husband, she was buried on a little knoll back of the house . . . the snow was so deep at the time as to make the way almost impassable, and but three, besides the family, were present at the time; but with their aid the body was laid away, with no ceremony save the sad good bye of those who loved her.”