Johnson Cath Smith Crisalli family genealogy - Person Sheet
Johnson Cath Smith Crisalli family genealogy - Person Sheet
NameGeorge E. JOHNSON
Deathaft 1910184
Census1860, Brandon, Franklin County, NY23
Census1870, Brandon, Franklin County, NY29
Census1875, Brandon, Franklin County, NY185
Census1880, Brandon, Franklin County, NY587
Census1900, Harrietstown, Franklin County, NY10
Census1910, Harrietstown, Franklin County, NY61
Father’s Place of BirthNew York24
Mother’s Place of BirthNew York24
FatherWilliam Kimbol JOHNSON (1830-<1896)
MotherMartha H. GRAHAM (1834-~1911)
Misc. Notes
In the 1870 federal census, he was living with his mother Martha and her husband Jesse Corey and Jesse’s children, Charles, Alembert and Charlotte. He was 13 and had been born in New York29
In the 1875 New York census, George Johnson is 19, 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 farmer.185
In 1880 federal census, he was living next to his brother Charles in Brandon (Coreys?). Also living with George were Charles Graham (Martha Graham’s brother), 47, boatman; Charles Wilson, 46, hunters’ guide.24 They were living next to Philander Johnson.
On Jan. 1, 1885, “George E. Johnson, guide.” signed a “Pledge of Saranac Hotel-Keepers and Guides,” later included in the “Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of the State of New York.” The pledge read: “We, the undersigned, hotel proprietors, guides and residents of the Adirondacks, having learned with regret that some vandal has been committing depredations upon the State hatchery property at Little Clear pond, do most heartily condemn such a dastardly outrage, and do pledge ourselves to use every lawful means to bring such perpretrators to speedy and condign punishment. Saranac Lake, January 1, 1885.” Also signing were Horace Peck, S.C. Martin, and Joseph B. Lamoy, among many others, and “Jesse Corey, proprietor of Rustic Lodge House, Upper Saranac lake.”
In the 1894 Annual Report of the New York State Forest Commission, George E. Johnson is listed among Lower Saranac Guides (Saranac Lake, Paul Smith’s, Ampersand Pond, Tupper Lakes, Bog River Chain, Raquette River, Blue Mountain Lake, Fulton Chain), along with other familiar names Charles Bartlett, Stephen Martin, Robert Nichols, and Anson Parsons.
In the 1900 federal census, he and his wife (now given as Emma) were in Harrietstown. He gave his birthdate as March 1856, age 44, and had been married 23 years. He and his parents were born in New York. His occupation was “Adirondack Guide.” He had been unemployed 2 months the previous year, could read and write, and owned his home with a mortgage.10
He is listed in Bromley’s “Guides of the Adirondacks” as George E. Johnson, a guide on the Lower Saranac, noted in Stoddard and a Franklin County guide resource. George E. Johnson is also listed as a Lower Saranac Guide in the 1893 Annual Report of the Forestry Commission (http://hamilton.nygenweb.net/history/AdirondackGuides.html). See Charles for more details on this citation.
In 1910 there is a George W. and family living in Bellmont, Franklin County, but his family is nearly illegible (image too light).
In 1910 there is a George E. living in Harrietstown, Franklin County, who is aged 54. He is living with wife Minnie, age 46. They indicate this is his second marriage, her first, and they have been married 8 years. She shows that she has had no children, but son Edward Johnson, age 15, and daughter Gertrude Johnson, age 14, are living with them. I’m unclear on these children, but assigning them to Emily/Emma and George (which would account for only two of the nine she said she had had). George works as a guide at “camp”. With them was a boarder, a music teacher whose name may have been Casey R. Sherme, from England, who came to the country in 1898.61
In the 1875 NYS Census, Charles and George are listed as Jesse Corey’s stepsons, at ages 21 and 19.
In the 1875 New York census, George Johnson is 19, 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 farmer.185
In 1880 federal census, he was living next to his brother Charles in Brandon (Coreys?). Also living with George were Charles Graham (Martha Graham’s brother), 47, boatman; Charles Wilson, 46, hunters’ guide.24 They were living next to Philander Johnson.
On Jan. 1, 1885, “George E. Johnson, guide.” signed a “Pledge of Saranac Hotel-Keepers and Guides,” later included in the “Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of the State of New York.” The pledge read: “We, the undersigned, hotel proprietors, guides and residents of the Adirondacks, having learned with regret that some vandal has been committing depredations upon the State hatchery property at Little Clear pond, do most heartily condemn such a dastardly outrage, and do pledge ourselves to use every lawful means to bring such perpretrators to speedy and condign punishment. Saranac Lake, January 1, 1885.” Also signing were Horace Peck, S.C. Martin, and Joseph B. Lamoy, among many others, and “Jesse Corey, proprietor of Rustic Lodge House, Upper Saranac lake.”
In the 1894 Annual Report of the New York State Forest Commission, George E. Johnson is listed among Lower Saranac Guides (Saranac Lake, Paul Smith’s, Ampersand Pond, Tupper Lakes, Bog River Chain, Raquette River, Blue Mountain Lake, Fulton Chain), along with other familiar names Charles Bartlett, Stephen Martin, Robert Nichols, and Anson Parsons.
In the 1900 federal census, he and his wife (now given as Emma) were in Harrietstown. He gave his birthdate as March 1856, age 44, and had been married 23 years. He and his parents were born in New York. His occupation was “Adirondack Guide.” He had been unemployed 2 months the previous year, could read and write, and owned his home with a mortgage.10
He is listed in Bromley’s “Guides of the Adirondacks” as George E. Johnson, a guide on the Lower Saranac, noted in Stoddard and a Franklin County guide resource. George E. Johnson is also listed as a Lower Saranac Guide in the 1893 Annual Report of the Forestry Commission (http://hamilton.nygenweb.net/history/AdirondackGuides.html). See Charles for more details on this citation.
In 1910 there is a George W. and family living in Bellmont, Franklin County, but his family is nearly illegible (image too light).
In 1910 there is a George E. living in Harrietstown, Franklin County, who is aged 54. He is living with wife Minnie, age 46. They indicate this is his second marriage, her first, and they have been married 8 years. She shows that she has had no children, but son Edward Johnson, age 15, and daughter Gertrude Johnson, age 14, are living with them. I’m unclear on these children, but assigning them to Emily/Emma and George (which would account for only two of the nine she said she had had). George works as a guide at “camp”. With them was a boarder, a music teacher whose name may have been Casey R. Sherme, from England, who came to the country in 1898.61
In the 1875 NYS Census, Charles and George are listed as Jesse Corey’s stepsons, at ages 21 and 19.
Newspaper article
Lake Placid News, May 29, 1914:
Saranac Lake News
Suckers Plentiful
George Mussen and his son Marshall, who spend the week-end in town, reported seeing more than an acre of suckers, weighing from two to four pounds apiece in Upper St. Regis last week. George Johnson, a local guide, said he thought the fish were more plentiful than ever before in recent years. Hundreds of the big fellows were seen running down the Saranac Sunday from the Broadway and Woodruff street bridges. The spearing season for suckers as for bullheads and whitefish was especially ordered by the Conservation commission this year from April 1st to May 15th. None were speared hereabouts apparently except at Saranac Inn mill. All three species may be caught with hook and line in any quantity at any time except that the season on whitefish is the same as that on lakers.
April 17, 1914:
(A George Johnson was elected as a steward of the Saranac Lake Methodist congregation.)
December 15, 1922, front page court blotter:
(Before Judge Owen, Essex County court)
George Johnson submitted proof that he held a mortgage on an automobile taken by state troopers.
March 19, 1926:
George Johnson is listed as a pallbearer for Albert Stickney, who built “The Pines,” which he then sold and which was renamed St. Moritz. One of Stickney’s daughers was Mrs. Burt Straight of Keeseville, connecting to the Straight murder-suicide that may have involved the potential 2nd wife of William Johnson
Saranac Lake News
Suckers Plentiful
George Mussen and his son Marshall, who spend the week-end in town, reported seeing more than an acre of suckers, weighing from two to four pounds apiece in Upper St. Regis last week. George Johnson, a local guide, said he thought the fish were more plentiful than ever before in recent years. Hundreds of the big fellows were seen running down the Saranac Sunday from the Broadway and Woodruff street bridges. The spearing season for suckers as for bullheads and whitefish was especially ordered by the Conservation commission this year from April 1st to May 15th. None were speared hereabouts apparently except at Saranac Inn mill. All three species may be caught with hook and line in any quantity at any time except that the season on whitefish is the same as that on lakers.
April 17, 1914:
(A George Johnson was elected as a steward of the Saranac Lake Methodist congregation.)
December 15, 1922, front page court blotter:
(Before Judge Owen, Essex County court)
George Johnson submitted proof that he held a mortgage on an automobile taken by state troopers.
March 19, 1926:
George Johnson is listed as a pallbearer for Albert Stickney, who built “The Pines,” which he then sold and which was renamed St. Moritz. One of Stickney’s daughers was Mrs. Burt Straight of Keeseville, connecting to the Straight murder-suicide that may have involved the potential 2nd wife of William Johnson
Newspaper article
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.”
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.”