William David JOHNSON

The following bio was taken from pages 261-262 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

William David Johnson was born near Walnut Grove, Leake County, Mississippi, on November 9, 1836. He served in the Army of the Confederacy as a private in Company K, 5^th Regiment, Mississippi Infantry and was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. On October 23, 1866 he married another Leake County native, Nancy Melinda Parker (born April 19, 1845), who was a cousin of Cynthia Ann Parker the mother of the last Comanche War Chief, Quanah Parker. In 1870 they moved to Texas and settled in Rusk County near Laneville. His mother and at least two of his brothers accompanied them to Texas and also settled in Rusk County. They farmed the land on which they settled until his death in 1891. Nancy Johnson lived until 1920. Both are buried in the cemetery at Laneville.

Eight children of W. D. and Nancy Johnson lived to maturity, and all of them were alive at Nancy’s death in 1920. William David Johnson, Jr., was born in Mississippi. He lived most of his adult life at Cushing, Nacogdoches County, where he was a farmer and for some years was a Justice of the Peace. The other children, all born on the family farm near Laneville, were: Franklin Parker, 1872-1955, a farmer; Sarah Alice (Crawford) 1874-1965); Orrie Jane (Needham) 1877-1935; Louise Ophelia (Harper) 1879-1953; Robert Pierce, a merchant at Cushing, 1882-1964; Mary Letitia, a school teacher, 1884-1977; and Charles Eugene, a merchant at Laneville and for two terms Tax Assessor and Collector of Rusk County, 1886-1947. There were twenty-five grandchildren surviving in 1920. Of these, thirteen survive at this writing, and five presently reside in Rusk County: Ruth Johnson Pirtle, Vinnie Lee Johnson Jones, Tossie Needham Bourne, Ralph Johnson, all of Laneville, and Nancy Johnson Preston of Henderson.

The lives of the children of William David and Nancy Johnson covered a period of one hundred and eight years, and all of them spent their entire lives within fifteen miles of the family home near Laneville. At the last count there were forty-seven living linear descendants of this pioneer couple. Their lives today cover a wide spectrum of the cultural and professional world. They live mostly in Texas with an outreach to Washington, D. C. on the east and to Massawa, Japan on the west.

Written by Charles Johnson