History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 48

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
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James G. Johnson was born at Bloomfield, Ontario Co., on the 13th day of September, 1811. He was the second son of James G. Johnson, a gentleman of English descent, and one of the original settlers in the village of Olean, which, however, at that time and for some years afterwards was called " Hamilton." His mother, whose maiden name was Sophia Stone, was of Scotch parentage, and, on her mother's side, a descendant of the Dudley family. The death of his father, in 1811, led to the return of his widowed mother to her father's house, where she remained until 1819, and then went back to her home in Olean, ac-

. Tie between Fred. Eaton and J. K. Comstock, and Hollis W. Moore appointed.

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companied in the removal by her infant son. At about the age of eight years he commenced attending school, and continued his attendance about two years, from the end of which time until he reached the age of thirteen his school- ing was limited to the winter months, the residue of the year being devoted to work. And this was the sum of his educational opportunities and advantages.

Of course the institution he thus attended was of the roughest and most primitive description, and yet it is by no means certain but that these schools in the wilderness, which, compared with our modern ample and costly facilities, seem scanty, mean, and inefficient, did not supply a discipline quite as profitable as those of our own day. Certain it is, that the pupil whose honest poverty compelled him to labor nine months in the year, to enable him to spend the three winter months in school, would improve the advantages of instruction with a keener application and prize them with a higher appreciation than one who was obliged to put forth no effort and practice no self-denial to obtain them. Indeed, it may be taken for granted that the stimulus supplied by an ambition so cheerfully submissive to sacrifice much more than overbalanced the splendid opportunities that proffer themselves to the modern scholar. So it is with other things, and the world over. What we gain with toil we prize, while what we win without exertion possesses but slight appre- ciated value.

At the age of fourteen, Mr. Johnson left his mother's roof, to provide henceforth for himself. In those days of scanty resources and patient industry young men did not expect to jump into a fortune without an effort, and he was content to give his time and labor for board and clothing. For eight months he performed the duties of a clerk in a little country store at Centerville, in the county of Allegany, at the end of which time the merchant failed, the store was closed, and the subject of our memoir was again adrift. But he was much too ambitious to remain idle, and soon found employment in the store of Ebenezer Lock wood, then a merchant at Olean, in whose service he remained for two years, and until the concern was discontinued. After serv- ing a year in the same capacity with William Bagley, on the same terms of compensation, to wit: board, clothing, and an occasional trifle of spending-money, he entered the store of Osburn & Bockes, where, for the first time, he re- ceived a regular stipend, and where he remained a few months. The following year he was out of employment, but being of a jovial and sociable disposition, he spent his time in fun, frolic, and social pleasure, which, while minis- tering greatly to the enjoyment of himself and others, pro- duced no harm to any.

Having thus sown his " wild oats," which, thanks to a conscientious mother and an old-fashioned New England training at her hands, were still oats with no admixture of tares, and thus prepared himself for the sober duties and responsibilities of active life, he entered into an engagement with the late Judge Martin, as clerk in his store, at a salary of ten dollars a month, besides board and washing. This was in 1831, and he continued the connection with a grad- ually increasing compensation for five years, and then en- tered into partnership with his employer, under the firm- name of Martin & Johnson, having, during his clerkship

and under the instruction of Mr. Martin, acquired a com- plete and efficient mastery of the business in all its aspects and details. During the period of nine years the partner- ship business continued with decided success and to the marked advantage of both. The connection terminated in 1846, when, having purchased a quantity of timber land and a saw-mill in the adjoining town of Allegany (then called Burton), he removed to that place with his family, and entered upon the business of lumbering. In company with Eleazar Harmon, Esq., of Ellicottville, he laid out the plat where now the village of Allegany stands, dividing the area into lots, which were advantageously sold. As was customary at that time, and indeed to some extent still, he carried on a mercantile business in connection with his lumber enterprise.

In 1854 he added another to his list of occupations by uniting with Gilbert Palen in building and operating the sole-leather tannery which was afterwards owned by Mr. Strong, and which was the first of the kind on the line of the Erie Railway west of the county of Delaware, the pio- neer of a countless host of similar establishments waging a war of extermination upon the apparently interminable hemlock forests, that seemed to invite and defy the onslaught.

The outburst of war, in 1861, found him still in the man- ufacture of lumber, and for a time effectually wound up the business, prostrating the markets and practically blockading the Ohio River, one side of which was in possession of the Confederates. More fortunate, however, than many other lumbermen, none of his property fell into rebel hands. In the summer of 1862, without his solicitation or knowl- edge, he was, at the instance of Hon. R. E. Fenton, then member of Congress from his district, and afterwards Gov- ernor, commissioned by the President as captain and assist- ant quartermaster, and assigned to brigade duty in the Army of the Potomac. He was present at the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, and was with the army under McClellan and Burnside in its march to Fredericks- burg. His health becoming greatly impaired by the hard- ships of army life and the arduous duties of his post, he was detached from field service and stationed at Aquia Creek in the memorable winter of 1863, and subsequently at Harrisburg, where he remained till the close of the war, discharging the duties of his place, although greatly reduced by diseases contracted in the service, from which, indeed, he has never fully recovered. For meritorious service he was promoted to the rank of a colonel of volunteers.

Returning to Olean in 1865, he became engaged for some years in mercantile pursuits, and established an active, ex- tensive, and prosperous business ; but his health would not admit the attention and activity necessary to its prosecution, and he resigned it to his sons. He took a prominent and active part in the establishment of the First National Bank at Olean, of which he still remains a director, contributing his full share to the sagacity and success that have distin- guished that institution. When the oil development be- came an established fact in the Bradford district, and long before any successful experiment had been made north of the Pennsylvania line, Mr. Johnson persisted in the belief and declaration that petroleum would yet be found in pay-

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ing quantities in the towns of Allegany and Olean. He manifested his faith by his works, and the event amply jus- tified his prophetic shrewdness. Associating himself with a few enterprising neighbors, a company was formed. The first well in either town was sunk on land leased by him to the company, and the result was the fulfillment of a project which had been generally regarded as chimerical. This enterprise was the forerunner of the whole great and ex- tending development of that vast interest in this locality,-a development which has clothed an immense area of broken, barren, and hitherto seemingly worthless territory with enormous value, and is destined to add millions to the resources of that portion of the State. Since his successful experiment, Mr. Johnson has devoted his time and atten- tion to that business, and is reaping the reward of his prescient sagacity in a steady and handsome revenue from the interests of which he is the fortunate proprietor.

Although he never has been possessed by any ambition for office, preferring greatly the pursuit of a legitimate business and the quiet enjoyment of domestic life, he has taken, from the outset, a decided interest in politics. It was impossible that a man of his devotion to principle and capacity for business should be overlooked by his party. Entirely against his wishes and his protests, he was nomi- nated by the Whigs, in 1848, for the Legislature, and although his district was Democratic by over three hundred as a current majority, he was elected. It is a singular fact that his brother, Marcus H. Johnson, nominated by the Democrats the same year for the same office in the Second District of the same county, was also elected against a standing Whig majority of about three hundred. In the fall of 1849 he was again nominated by the Whig party for the office of county clerk, and triumphantly elected over a popular Democratic competitor. In 1871 he was appointed postmaster at Olean, performing the functions of the office most efficiently and acceptably till in the year 1877, when he voluntarily resigned. On repeated occasions and in many ways has he been honored by emphatic evidences of neighborly and popular regard, and it may be said of him, with perfect truth, that he has deserved and justified them all.

It would be scarcely possible that a life so long as his, though its general tenor has been pleasant and successful, should be without its troubles and its sorrows. His wife, whose maiden name was Clarissa Gaylord, a most estimable lady, whose companionship and love for nearly forty years ministered incalculably to his happiness and well being, left his side a few months ago, and waits a reunion with him in another and a better world. Of his two sons, the elder, Henry, a spirit bright, gracious, and universally beloved, preceded his mother to that inevitable bourne whither we all are tending, and to which in a few short years she fol- lowed him in the same path of faith worn by so many Christian feet. At still earlier periods of his history death was busy in his family, taking from his household four of his sons, each bright and full of promise. Mournful as his later life has been made by this domestic desolation, and in spite of failing health, he has borne the heavy burden with the uncomplaining fortitude that forms a conspicuous trait of his character, and he finds with his surviving son a home replete with comfort and kindly ministration. Neither age

nor feeble health has quenched his energy or dimmed his interest in the occurrences of the time. None are better in- formed than he as to passing events. In every enterprise conducive to the public advantage he bears an active and influential part. In all the relations that man sustains to his kind, as an associate, a citizen, a trusted adviser, and a friend, he stands high in the general regard. The com- munity in which he lives could better spare many a younger man, and this imperfect sketch will but echo the universal sentiment in closing with the expression of a fervent hope that he may long remain among them, a source of benefit to all around him and an embodiment of the virtue and intelligence of an earlier time.

HON. GEORGE VAN CAMPEN.

This gentleman bears an ancient and distinguished name in the history of Holland. The name in its early application signified land-men,-men of the fields, or camp-men. Van, prefixed, was intended as a designation of distinction or eminence which they, in common with other Dutch families, were supposed to have merited. The name in its early spelling was with " K," and was pronounced " Fon-Kompe."

Three centuries ago the Dutch stood pre-eminently in the front rank of the nations of Western Europe, and among her citizens of note were Jacob Van Campen, Lord of Ran- denbrook ; Vice-Admiral Van Campen, of the East India Naval Squadron ; John Van Campen, commanding one of Admiral Van Tromp's ships in the war with England ; Lieu- tenant Lambert Hendrickson Van Campen, in the West India naval service ; John Nicholas Van Campen, Governor of Curacoa, one of Holland's West India dependencies ; and among the more recent of Holland's honored names are Nicholas Godfried Van Campen, the son of a florist, who, by his own efforts, rose to the Lecturate of the German Language and Literature in the University of Linden, and afterwards to the Professorship of Dutch History and Lit- erature in the Amsterdam Athenaeum, a celebrated old school, enjoying the same rank as the Linden University. He was a great scholar and a laborious writer, mainly in the domain of history. His historical works enumerate in all nearly sixty volumes, while he translated numerous works from both ancient and modern languages, having a knowledge of seven or eight foreign tongues, and writing French and German equally with his native language. He was a great patriot and a warm admirer of America. He died in 1839, and his son is now an esteemed and influen- tial publisher and bookseller in Amsterdam.

The first of the name in America, John Aerensen Van Campen, farmer, arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York), June 19, 1658, in the ship " Brown Fish," Cornelius Maerten, master. In the month of March, 1662, his wife, Grietje (Grace), and his son, Nicholas, arrived in the ship " Faith." Soon after, John A. Van Campen and other sturdy Hollanders formed that wonderfully prosperous settlement on the Delaware River, above and below the Water Gap, including Minisink. They were followed by a very im- portant and valuable addition composed of French Hugue- nots. They made treaties with the native races, lived in

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peace and concord many years, and until disturbed by influ- ences beyond the control of the little colony. They followed with great success the peaceful pursuits of agriculture ; they cleared lands and built upon them ; they erected saw- and grist-mills, and operated them ; they opened mines and utilized their treasures ; and they constructed macadamized roads for the convenience of travel. For more than three- quarters of a century they lived in peace, and enjoyed the prosperity their industry had wrought, in happiness and contentment.

By the year 1750, such had been the prosperity of the Van Campens that they were the owners of large tracts of land on both sides of the Delaware, in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In the adjustment, settlement, and disposition of various vexatious questions arising from their Indian neighbors ; the proprietaries ; boundaries, both public and private; in provisions, both civil and military, the name of Van Campen stands conspicuous. Colonel Abram Van Campen, of Sussex County, who was ap- pointed Judge of the Common Pleas by King George II., was one of the most trusted and honored citizens of New Jersey. His old stone mansion on the Delaware was the seat of unbounded hospitality. It was here that the dis- tinguished patriot, John Adams, notes in his diary, after driving in his coach from home, on his way to Philadelphia, that, " when he arrived on the Delaware, he always stopped several days to rest with 'Squire Van Campen."

On the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware were settled several members of the family,-Jacob, Aaron, John, and Cornelius Van Campen, the latter the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. In the conflicts which Pennsylvania encountered with the Connecticut colony on the Susquehanna all of these brothers were conspicuous, and always as the true, wise, and trusted adherents of Penn- sylvania's finally-successful rights. Between the years 1769 and 1773, three brothers of the Van Campens, including Cornelius, were members of the Delaware Company, in opposition to the Connecticut colony, to settle upon the lands and maintain the claims of Pennsylvania under the grant of King Charles II. The fierce strife and often bloodshed between the " Pennites" and the " Yankees," as they were called, was continued, and only gave way to the all-absorbing struggle of 1776, and was followed by that relentless and barbarous system of warfare adopted by England in employing the savage Indian as her allies.

In common with others, all the resources, tact, courage, and endurance of the Van Campens was offered on the common altar of defense and patriotism.

On the 28th of March, 1780, while Cornelius and his brother were preparing to rebuild their farm buildings, before burnt by the Indians, a party of ten of these savages made a stealthy and sudden descent upon them. First killing Jacob, they secured his young son and Peter Pense, and then cautiously advancing to the farm of Cor- nelius, who was aided by his elder son, Moses, and younger son, Nicholas, suddenly sprang upon them, running a spear through the father and tomahawking Nicholas. An Indian made a spring at Moses, who dexterously parried the spear aimed at him, and was shielded by one of the Indians, who was attracted by his coolness and skill, his life thereby being

saved. Thus suddenly two families were left fatherless, Cornelius leaving five sons (besides he who was slain) and four daughters, Benjamin, the father of he who forms the subject of this biography, being the youngest, then a little past two years of age. By this catastrophe a happy and united family was broken up, the remaining members never afterwards being united in one household. The mother, with the younger members of the family, returned to the Dela- ware, the home of her childhood and of her venerable and respected father, Moses De Pew.

J. F. Meginniss, in his " History of the West Branch," published in 1857, after several references to the exploits of the Van Campens, says, " Nearly all the old people yet living on the West Branch are familiar with the names of Moses and Jacobus Van Campen. They were remarkable adven- turers as well as noted Indian killers, and distinguished themselves in many a hard-fought battle. Their services were very valuable in the protection of the frontiers."

In the moving tide of population in the year 1796 was founded that heroic settlement on the western verge of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, in township No. 4 of the seventh and last range west, consisting in that and the fol- lowing year of fifteen families from Eastern Pennsylvania, in which came Rev. Andrew Gray, a Scotch Presbyterian, and son-in-law of the lamented Captain Lazarus Stewart, who fell at the Wyoming massacre, and his brother William, Major Moses Van Campen, and his brothers Samuel and Benjamin, Captain Henry McHenry and his brother Matthew, Joseph, Samuel, and Walter Karr, George Lockhart, together with other excellent material. Next to the felling of the forest and erecting their own dwellings, they built the school-house, in which they also worshiped God. In this house the aged and scholarly widow Van Campen taught school in the summer, and the Rev. Andrew Gray in the winter, and held stated religious services on the Sabbath. Of this and another settlement Colonel Charles Williamson, in a series of letters published by T. & J. Swords, New York, in 1799, says, --

" Of these begun in 1796 there were two worthy of notice : that of the Rev. Andrew Gray, who moved from Pennsylvania, with a respectable portion of his former parishioners, and a Jersey settlement on the head of the Canascraga Creek. Both of these exhibit instances of in- dustry and enterprise rare as uncommon."

It was in the former of the above-referred-to settlements that George Van Campen was born, Nov. 13, 1817. His father beginning on seventy-six acres of land in 1796, with his beloved mother as housekeeper in 1797, with whom she remained until her death. Here he continued to live for more than fifty years, prospering; and accumulating four hundred and forty-six acres of land, mostly productive and adapted to agriculture. The son (George) remembers with pleasure the pride with which his father told him that he had never sued a man nor been sued on his own contract or obligation during a business career extending over fifty years.

His mother, a woman of great energy, industry, and deep piety, was the daughter of George, and the granddaughter of Hezekiah Saunders, of Rhode Island, both of whom served faithfully through the Revolutionary war, and were

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active in that memorable and closing event that brought joy to the heart of every struggling colonist,-the battle of Yorktown and surrender of Lord Cornwallis. He remembers his grandfather relating that so chagrined were the British officers on marching out to surrender that they tore their hair from their heads, and that George Washington's colored body-servant felicitously said of Cornwallis to his master, " Massa, he no more Cornwallis, he Cobwallis."

Here, in the midst of these favorable surroundings, his early years were spent, commencing school in the sixth and continuing until the close of his fifteenth year, and by earnest study and close application laid the foundation for his most cherished purpose, a thorough and liberal education. In the month of November of that year a sad bereavement fell on his father's family. His older brother, the first-born of his mother, aged seventeen, and his sister, next younger, aged thirteen, died within twelve hours of each other.

These melancholy events made necessary a complete change of his youthful plans. He was then the oldest son at home; his father, in addition to his large farm, had, in 1826 to 1828, organized under the post-office department a system of postal service for the easterly part of Allegany, parts of Steuben and Livingston Counties, which contracts he held until 1842. For nearly six years he had charge of this service, its quarterly collections, its reports and correspond- ence with the department at Washington. During these years all his spare time was devoted to study, mostly under the direction of that celebrated instructor, Rev. Moses Hunter, founder afterwards of a noted school at Quincy, Ill.

These now much-prized engagements brought him largely in contact with the leading business and public men of the time. Spending several years after his majority in a gen- eral merchandising establishment, on the 25th day of De- cember, 1843, he made his first engagement in Randolph, in this county, where he continued in the same business until 1851, when he exchanged his real estate for timber lands in Allegany, where he removed and continued his business, adding lumbering and the buying and selling of real estate, succeeding in the year 1856 to the contract of purchase made by Rev. John Doran with the late Judge Benjamin Chamberlain and Hon. E. Harman, of over eleven thousand acres of land, to which afterwards he devoted his time, giving up his merchandising to his ever-trusted and re- spected clerk, partner, and friend, Adelbert H. Marsh.

On the 1st of March, 1869, he removed to Olean, where he has since continued to reside, continuing the same pur- suits ; owning with his sons, James K. and George, Jr., the Olean House, managed by his sons.

In the year 1845 he made the acquaintance of Sophia T. King, then a pupil in the Leroy Seminary, now Ingraham University, to whom he was married on the 4th of August, 1847. She was the daughter of the late Anson and Sophia King, who in their early years came with their respective parents, about the beginning of the century, from the New England States to Ontario County. Her grandfather, Gideon King, from Massachusetts, in company with Zadock Granger, purchased twenty thousand acres of land, which they sold afterwards successfully. Her grandfather, Isaac Stone, from Connecticut,-her grandmother Parthenia

Stone being the daughter of David Dudley, of Guilford, and sister of Mrs. Rev. Timothy Field, mother of the four well-known brothers, Field ; David Dudley Field being the oldest. They have been blessed with eight children, -five daughters and three sons : James King, born in 1851 ; George, Jr., in 1854; Benjamin, in 1866; and Josephine Maria, in 1868. Four daughters dying in infancy and childhood. Mrs. King, by her first husband, was the mother of Hon. Marcus H. and Colonel James J. Johnson.

For more than forty years he has been an active and deeply-interested participant in the stirring and momentous events of those years. Always a thorough Democrat in the best sense of that much-abused term,-never a partisan, -always asserting the right and exercising the freedom to act with that organization which seemed to him at the time most likely to promote the greatest public good.

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History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 48

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: