Lawrenceburg Press, Sparta Items, Lawrenceburg, IN 1-25-1877

Another Pioneer Gone Death of Hon. John D. Johnson

Died, at his residence near Sparta, Jan. 20th, of Apoplexy, Mr. John D. Johnson, age 71 years 11 months and twenty days. On the Thursday previous he had attended to his work as usual. On coming into the house in the evening he complained of feeling badly. His wife requested him to lie down. He objected, saying if he laid down he never would get up again. Seating himself in a chair his speech soon became inarticulate. He was placed in a bed. Unconsciousness supervened from which he did not rally. Having had two previous attacks the last and fatal one was not unexpected.
Mr. Johnson was born in Worcester Co., MD January 25th in the year 1805. About the year 1819 he with his father, Benjamin Johnson, emigrated to Dearborn County, and soon after settled on the farm now owned by Robert Scott near Sparta. The farm being unimproved and covered by a heavy growth of timber, required years of hard labor to bring it into a state of cultivation, which he shared in common with the family. In the year 1828 he married Sarah, oldest daughter of the late John Brumblay. By patient labor and economy he has accumulated a competency. Nor was it for the love of wealth, for no man has been more liberal than he. Much of his means has been devoted to giving his children a liberal education, and his heart and purse were ever open to the call of distress.
Mr. Johnson was twice elected representative for this county in our State Legislature and was a member of the convention that framed the State Constitution in 1850-51. He was a member of the Sparta Baptist Church, and aside from the late Father Givan, there was no one member that done more to build up and strengthen the cause than he. In his death this community has lost a citizen that has contributed largely to the building up of religious and educational institutions, his wife a kind husband, the children a father in the strictest sense of that name. To them remains the mournful pleasure of cherishing his memory, whose life was devoted to their welfare and happiness.
The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. N. C. Petitt at the Baptist Church, Jan. 22d, at half past ten o'clock a.m. The large and attentive audience present, to pay the last sad rites, proved the well earned estimation in which he was held. At the conclusion of the funeral services his remains were conveyed to Moore's Hill cemetery, and there interred to await the final call to life that knows no suffering."