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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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JOHNSON, JAMES (1811-1877)

JOHNSON, JAMES, businessman and shipbuilder; b. Liverpool, England, c1811; m. 1837, Rosina Abigail Layton; d. Saint John, 5 Jun 1877.

James Johnson was a half-brother of William Wilkinson and a cousin of John M. Johnson. His wife was a daughter of William Layton of Surrey, England, whose widow, Mrs Harriet Layton, died in Chatham in 1841.

Until 1839 Johnson was a minor partner in the trading firm of Richard Blackstock & Co. In 1840 he had a store in Chatham. He announced in 1841 that he was beginning an auctioneering and commission business. In 1845 he and John Mackie created the firm of Johnson & Mackie, a merchandising and shipbuilding concern which took over his former business and flourished in the decade following the collapse of Joseph Cunard & Co. The partners conducted a store in Chatham and had at least sixteen vessels built at their shipyard at England's Hollow between 1849 and 1854. Their master builder, until he departed for Australia in 1852, was Andrew Mason, and in the words of Louise Manny, the vessels which came off their stocks were "the finest clipper ships ever built in Miramichi."

Johnson was an executive member of the Miramichi Temperance Society in 1840. As a political supporter of John Ambrose Street he reaped the contempt of John Hea and others during the election troubles of 1842-43 and had "outrages" committed against his property. In 1846, as a vestryman of the Anglican church, he declined to support those who were trying to have the Rev. James Hudson removed as missionary. In 1847 he was one of the incorporators and first officers of the Miramichi Mechanics' Institute.

Johnson was a trustee of the Chatham Joint Stock Co., which was formed in the late 1840s to place a steam ferry on the river. The company launched the Chatham ferry boat in September 1847, but because the county magistrates were not yet prepared to concede that steam ferries, like their predecessors, would require public subsidization, the venture was doomed to financial failure.

In 1851 Johnson announced that he was leaving the Miramichi and would hold an auction sale of household furnishings. He evidently went to his home city of Liverpool, England, at this time. His wife, family, and servant left for Liverpool two months later in the INDIAN OCEAN, a Johnson & Mackie ship. Mackie represented the firm on the Miramichi until 1855, when the partnership was dissolved. For the next two years Johnson continued to build ships in absentia, in the name of Johnson & Co., with David Ritchie exercising his power of attorney in Chatham. He may then have become a partner in Johnson, Morrow & Co., shipbuilders, of Liverpool, who advertised in The Gleaner in 1857. He soon left shipbuilding behind, however, and settled in London, Ont., where he was a successful businessman, as well as a provincial arbitrator. He failed in a bid to win a seat in the Ontario Assembly in 1860.

Johnson's wife, Rosina A. Layton, died in London, Ont., in 1873, and early in 1877 he returned to the Miramichi to reside with his half-brother, William Wilkinson. He was visiting in Saint John when he died a few months later, at around age sixty-six.

Sources

[m] Gleaner 10 Jan 1837 [d] Telegraph 6 Jun 1877 / Advocate 2 Apr 1873, 25 Apr 1877; Fraser (C); Gleaner 19 Nov 1839, 3 Mar 1840, 7 Jul 1840, 17 Aug 1841, 14 Feb 1843, 27 Mar 1843, 28 Jul 1843, 23 Aug 1845, 30 May 1846, 16 Feb 1847, 13 Apr 1847, 3 Oct 1848, 24 Jun 1850, 23 Sep 1850, 28 Apr 1851, 16 Jun 1851, 16 Jun 1855, 21 Jul 1855, 14 Feb 1857, 22 Oct 1870; Manny (Ships); NB Courier 22 May 1841


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