User:Vnostrand/Jeremiah Johnson

Introduction
General Jeremiah Johnson was an American civic leader, scholar and noted military commander. Gen.Johnson was born on January 23, 1766 on his family's farm overlooking Wallabout Bay, NY (the future home of the Brooklyn Navy Yard) and died on October 20, 1852 in the same family homestead. Gen.Johnson served his country as a Brigadier General during the War of 1812; a Town Supervisor of the Town of Brooklyn, NY; the New York State Assembly member for Kings County; and later as the Mayor of the City of Brooklyn, NY in 1837-9.

Gen. Johnson was the son of Mr. Barnet Johnson (1740–1782), a local Revolutionary War hero, and married to Miss Abigail Remsen in 1787. His daughter, Miss Sarah Ann Johnson (1805–1888), married Mr. Nicholas Wycoff (1799–1883), the President of the First National Bank of Brooklyn. In spite of his anglicized name, he was a direct descendent of the original Dutch settlers of the New Netherlands and maintained his fluency in the Dutch language.

Military Service
Jeremiah Johnson was very much inspired by his father's local service to the new American Republic. Major Barnet (Barent) Johnson, Jeremiah's father, had been fully committed to the success of the new republic. In March, 1776, Barnet volunteered as a Captain of the Kings County Militia, served during the unsuccessful Battle of Long Island, and encamped with the Continental Army at Harlem in 1776.

While accompanying the Continental Army to New Jersey, Barnet was captured by English forces in early 1777. Intervention by an English officer—a fellow Freemason—gained him a pardon from General Howe.

Following in his fathers footsteps, Jeremiah Johnson accepted a commission as a Captain in the New York State Militia on April 13, 1787. In 1795, he was commissioned as a Second Major in the New York State Militias 64th Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. Aquila Giles, and promoted to First Major on March 19, 1796. November 11, 1800 brought him command of the 64th Regiment as Lt. Col. Giles was promoted to Brigadier General.

During the War of 1812, Jeremiah Johnson volunteered as a junior captain, quickly rising in rank to Colonel as he commanded volunteers on the frontier, then western NY along Lake Ontario. With war with Great Britain developing at this time, the US War Department issued orders on April 21, 1812 for the commitment of New Yorks State Militia to be arranged into two divisions and eight brigades. The first division was under the command of Major General Stephan Van Rensselaer and the second under the command of Major General Benjamin Mooers.

The commander of the Eighth Brigade was Brigadier General George McClure of the town of Bath in Steuben County, and under him served a regiment of light infantry from Brooklyn, NY commanded by Colonel Jeremiah Johnson. He received a Brigadier Generals commission and placed in command of the 1,750 troops of the 22d Brigade of Infantry. In view of the possibility of Britain invading from the sea, they were ordered on September 2, 1814 to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY. There, he supervised the construction of a fort and barracks.

He remained there for three months, after which peace was concluded with Great Britain. In honor of his service, he was finally promoted to the rank of Major General in the New York State Militia, a position he kept for life, even though he did not actually command a division.

Civic Service
General Johnson was a clerk of the consistory of the Dutch Reformed church for a period of forty years. In 1796, he became a trustee of the town of Brooklyn, a position he held for twenty years. In 1800, he was seated as a town supervisor, and he held that position until 1840. During that period, he served many times as Chairman.

In 1808 and 1809, he served as a representative of Kings County in the New York Assembly. In 1837 and 1838, he was elected to two one-year terms as Mayor of Brooklyn, earning a salary of $1,000 per year.

Scholarship
While General Johnson never set out to have a literary career, he was a youthful witness to one of the most horrible events in the American Revolution and would later feel the necessity to write about the subjects that concerned him.

"Living on the shore of Wallabout bay, in view of the head quarters of the British forces, he daily saw the memorable prison ships as they lay moored before him, and also saw many of the bodies of the 14,000 martyrs, brought from these ships and slightly buried upon the beach." "The bones of the prison-ship martyrs lay for many years bleaching on the banks of Wallabout Bay, where they had been rudely buried by the British."

In 1792, General Johnson chaired a committee to reclaim the bones of the patriots buried on the shore of Wallabout Bay and have them properly buried at the Reformed Dutch Church graveyard, along with the erection of a suitable monument. However, those loyal to a nascent Tammany Society blocked the move. It would not be until 1808 that the Tammany Society finally erected the first Martyrs' Memorial in Fort Greene Park.

Selected works:

Recollections of General Jeremiah Johnson, from His Note Book, Published in Naval Magazine, Volume 1, 1836