Captain John Johnson (1590-1659) - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025, Week 5 theme "Challenge"

My 10X great grandfather John Johnson was born in England about 1590 and shows up in the record for his marriage to Mary Heath (1594-1629) at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Ware, Hertfordshire, England on 21 September 1613.

St. Mary the Virgin Church, Ware, Hertfordshire - photo by Christine Matthews licensed for reuse through the

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Included among their children was my 9X great grandfather Humphrey Johnson (1620-1693), whose story would appropriately suit this week's topic of "Challenge", but I had already written a story about him (accessible through this link).

Shortly after Mary's death and John's second marriage, the family sailed to the Colony of Massachusetts Bay on the Arabella as part of the Winthrop Fleet, landing at Salem 22 June 1630. The Johnsons were Puritans and one might discuss the challenges faced by these religious dissidents at the time, but that isn't going to be the focus of this week's story either. 

They were among the English founding families of Roxbury (now part of Boston) where John took an active part in the affairs of the community, serving on various committees and juries. He was able to read and write. By 1638-40 he had 6 goats and 4 kids (which, based on goats’ reputations, could also have inspired a story about challenges). 

In 1641 he was chosen Surveyor General, which included responsibility for the weapons and ammunition of the Colony. He was to ensure that each soldier had a musket, sword, rest and pair of bandoliers with 2 fathoms of match for each musket. (As best I understand this, the muskets would have been matchlock muskets which use a piece of slow-burning match cord to ignite the gunpowder. Two fathoms of match would have been 12 feet or twice a man's armspan.) Much of this along with 17-18 barrels of gunpowder were stored in the Johnson home. On 6 April 1645, fire broke out and levelled the house; the ammunition blew up causing homes in Boston and Cambridge to shake with what residents thought to be an earthquake. Fortunately no one was home at the time and, surprisingly, no one was killed. That may in part be attributed to a high wind that changed direction in time to save all other nearby homes.

Johnson did not seem to be blamed for this disastrous loss of defense materials. Instead, the general court was chastised for its many years of not having taken better care of the community's stock of weaponry and there was also some thought that it served them right for previously not having come to the defense of their countrymen in Virginia and Plymouth against the Native Americans. (Today we might well challenge the assumption that they should have been waging war on the Native Americans in the first place!)

However, this brings us to the challenge that now faced John Johnson (aged about 55) to replace his house and out-buildings and all the family's personal effects. He was certainly a man of means with significant land holdings who also ran a tavern. No doubt the community came to his aid. But he also benefitted by having no qualms about his conflict of interest when he used his own tavern for training day meetings and headquarters for Roxbury's military Train Band of which he was Captain.

Just months after the fire, John Johnson was listed as an officer to oversee the establishment of a school for which he himself became a donor. This was the origin of the Roxbury Latin School which is billed as the oldest boys school in North America as well as the oldest school in continuous operation in North America.

Johnson was a signatory on a report for rebuilding of the community's defenses on Castle Island on 20 July 1652. He was a Selectman in government during the 1650s and also was involved in a group erecting a new mill. He obviously remained involved in community responsibilities throughout his life.

John Johnson died 30 September 1659 and was buried in the Eliot Burying Ground in Roxbury. 

Eliot Burying Ground, Roxbury, MA
from Findagrave.com website
Permission to use photo kindly granted by photographer Rhonda Clark

The inventory of his estate after his death shows just how well he had met the challenge of rebuilding his fortune lost in the fire and explosion 14 years earlier. The list of possessions goes on at length (6 pages!) and is valued at 668 pounds, an amount considered very high for those times. The full list includes 6 beds and abundant bedding, clothing, carpets in every room, silver, chests and trunks, several tables, stools, chairs, many yards of cloth, pounds of cheese, bushels of grain, several cows, sheep, ram, lambs and a horse, along with several parcels of land. He clearly provided a very comfortable life for his family while meeting the challenges of his lifetime. 

Some Resources:

* Johnson, Gerald Garth: The Biography and Genealogy of Captain Johnson from Roxbury, Massachusetts: an uncommon man in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630 to 1659; published by Heritage Books, Bowie Md 2000; available on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/biographygenealo00john/mode/2up

*Anderson, Robert Charles: New England, The Great Migration Begins, Vol. 2, G-O, p1105