Joc-Jus: Jocelyn through Justice

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


JOCELYN, Simeon S., New Haven, Connecticut, New York, NY, abolitionist leader.  Vice President, 1834-1835, Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1855.  Co-founded the Amistad Committee with Lewis Tappan and Joshua Leavitt.  Active in the Underground Railroad, aiding escaped slaves.  Vice President and co-founder, New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS), 1832.  Active in training Blacks in schools of manual arts.   

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 169, 171, 175-176; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 4, 30, 31, 150, 235, 396n5; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 326; First, Second, and Third Annual Reports of the Board of Managers of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston, 1833-35)


JOHNSON, Cave, Kentucky, strong supporter of the American Colonization Society in Kentucky. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 139)


JOHNSON, Jacob, abolitionist, officer of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 131)


JOHNSON, John B., Logan County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39.


JOHNSON, Mary, abolitionist, member of the New England Non-Resistance Society.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 151, 253n, 289)


JOHNSON, Mathew,  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39.


JOHNSON, Nathan, 1797-1880, African American, former slave, abolitionist leader, community leader.  American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, 1839-1840, 1841-1842. 

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 6, p. 479)


JOHNSON, Oliver, 1809-1889, anti-slavery leader, newspaper editor, printer, reformer.  An early supporter of William Lloyd Garrison.  American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Member Executive Committee, 1841-1843, Manager, 1852-1853.  Occasionally helped Garrison in the editing of The Liberator.  In 1832, co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society.  Lectured extensively against slavery.  Johnson edited various anti-slavery newspapers, including the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the Pennsylvania Freeman, and the Anti-Slavery Bugle. 

(Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 86, 87, 214, 215, 226, 261, 262, 297, 335, 368; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 367; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 446; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 112; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 107)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 112:

JOHNSON, OLIVER (December 27, 1809-December 10, 1889), anti-slavery leader, editor, was born at Peacham, Caledonia County, Vermont, the son of Ziba Johnson, a Peacham pioneer in 1795, and Sally Lincoln. He was related on his mother's side to the Lincolns and Leonards of Massachusetts, and on his father's was descended from Isaac Johnson, who came to America in the late seventeenth century. Oliver grew up on a farm and attended the common school until he became an apprentice in the printing office of the Vermont Watchman, Montpelier. Here he came under the influence of William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.], whose paper, Journal of the Times (Bennington), he eagerly devoured. On September 8, 1832, he married Mary Anne White, daughter of Reverend Broughton White of Putney, Vermont. She was assistant matron of the female prison at Sing Sing, a promoter of prison reform, and later a lecturer on anatomy and physiology to women.

Going to Boston in 1831, he established the Christian Soldier, in opposition to the doctrine of Universalism. His office was in the same building with that of the Liberator and there soon sprang up between Johnson and Garrison an intimacy and an agreement on all phases of the slavery question which lasted throughout their lives. When in 1833 and 1840 Garrison went to England, he intrusted the editing of the Liberator in his absence to Johnson, and during the summers of 1837 and 1838 Garrison, because of ill health, turned his paper over to Johnson's care. In 1832 Johnson became one of the twelve founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and in 1836, its traveling agent. From this time forward he continuously engaged in the work of the anti-slavery crusade, lecturing under the auspices of several of the numerous anti-slavery societies, writing, and editing. He was Boston correspondent of the New York Tribune, 1842-44, and assistant to Horace Greeley, 1844-48. In 1849 he became editor of the Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Massachusetts), somewhat later of the Pennsylvania Freeman, from which in 1853 the National Anti-Slavery Society transferred him to the associate editorship of the National Anti-Slavery Standard at New York. This post he held until the end of the Civil War. He was also connected with the Republican (Philadelphia), a Free-Soil paper, and the Practical Christian (Milford, Massachusetts). After the Civil War he was associate editor of the Independent, 1865-70; editor of the New York Weekly Tribune, 1870-73; managing editor of the Christian Union, 1873-76; editor of the Journal (Orange, New Jersey); and associate editor of the New York Evening Post (1881-89). His wife died in June 1872, and on August 27, 1873, he married Jane Abbott, daughter of John S. C. Abbott [q.v.], by whom he had one daughter. He died in Brooklyn, New York.

Johnson has been called "a wheel horse in every humanitarian movement for almost half a century, a man whose philosophy of life was quite simply to love his neighbor as himself " (Henry Ward Beecher, p. 238). As a reformer he was interested not only in abolition but in nearly all the progressive movements of his day. As early as 1838 his interest in women's rights was shown when he advocated full participation of women in anti-slavery societies. He was temporary secretary of the Peace Convention of 1838 at Boston and showed a consistent interest in the peace movement throughout his life. In politics he followed much the same course as Garrison until, in the election of 1872, he became an active worker in the reform campaign of Horace Greeley. He was a close friend of Henry Ward Beecher and of Theodore Tilton. As an editor he was able to use his pen in the interests of all those reforms which attracted him. His works include: Consider This, Ye That Forget God (1831); Correspondence with George F. White (1841); What I Know of Horace Greeley (campaign tract, 1872); William Lloyd Garrison and His Times (1880); The Abolitionists Vindicated in a Review of Eli Thayer's Paper on the New England Emigrant Aid Society (1887). In maturity he abandoned the Calvinism of his youth and became identified with a small group known as "Progressive Friends," whose center was at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania Because of this affiliation, he was buried at Kennett Square.

[William Lloyd Garrison, 1805- 1879, The Story of his Life. Told by his Children (4 volumes, 1885-89); Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher (1927); Independent, December 19, 1889; New York Herald, December 11, 1889; Evening Post (New York), December 11, 1889; Nation, December 19, 1889; genealogical material from family records in the possession of Johnson's grand-niece, Miss F. F. Clark, Peacham, Vermont ]

J. W. P-t.
A.G.T.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 446:

JOHNSON, Oliver; editor, born in Peacham, Vt., 27 December, 1809; died in Brooklyn, New York, 10 December, 1889. He served in the office of the “Watchman,” at Montpelier, Vt., and in 1831 became the editor of the newly established “Christian Soldier.” From 1865 till 1870 he was managing editor of the “Independent,” after which he became the editor of the “Weekly Tribune,” which post he resigned in 1872 to become editor of the “Christian Union.” He was active in the cause of anti-slavery as lecturer and editor, and was one of the twelve that organized the New England anti-slavery society in 1832. He published “William Lloyd Garrison and his Times, or Sketches of the Anti-slavery Movement in America” (Boston, 1880). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 446.


JOHNSON, Reverdy, 1796-1876, lawyer, diplomat, statesman, U.S. Senator, opposed annexing territories acquired in the war with Mexico.  Strongly opposed the annexation of Mexican territory, for he feared that it would revive the whole problem of the extension of slavery. Although he thought that slavery was wrong, he believed that its expansion into the territories was a local concern, but, nevertheless, in order to avert the threatened disaster to the Union he urged compromise and suggested that the slavery question be submitted to the Supreme Court. Ardent supporter of the Union.  Believed that African Americans should be recruited into the Union Army and as a result should gain their emancipation.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 446-447; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 112-114; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 116)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 112-114:

JOHNSON, REVERDY (May 21, 1796-February 10, 1876), lawyer and diplomat, was a native of Annapolis, Maryland. His mother, Deborah Ghieselen, was a daughter of Reverdy Ghieselen, of Huguenot descent, who was for a time commissioner of the land office of Maryland. His father, John Johnson, whose ancestors had emigrated from England, served his state as a member of both houses of the legislature, as judge of the court of appeals, and as chancellor. The boy received his general education in St. John's College at Annapolis, graduating in 1811. After reading law, first with his father and .hen with Judge Stephen, he was admitted to the bar in 1815. Four years later, on November 16, he married Mary Mackall  Bowie, whose mother's father was Governor. Robert Bowie [q.v.]. Johnson's law practice began in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, but in 1817 he removed to Baltimore, where for almost sixty years he continued active in his profession, becoming one of the greatest lawyers of his day. He had an unusual memory, which served him especially well in the latter half of his life, when he became partially blind. His mental alertness made him a rare cross-examiner. He possessed a deep, oratorical voice that immediately commanded attention and was an important professional asset, as were also his tact, good nature, and unusual courtesy. During his early law practice, in cooperation with Thomas Harris, clerk of the Maryland court of appeals, he compiled the reports of cases decided in that court (1-7 Harris and Johnson Reports, 1800-27).

His chief legal fame rested upon his ability as a constitutional lawyer. He appeared as counsel in a number of very important suits and had as associates or opponents many of the most famous men of his time. In 1854 he and Thaddeus Stevens obtained for Cyrus McCormick a decision upholding the validity of the reaper patent (Seymour vs. McCormick, 16 Howard, 480). Two years later, in a second suit between the same parties he was associated with Edward M. Dickerson in opposition to Edwin M. Stanton (19 Howard, 96). The most famous case with which he was connected was Dred Scott vs. Sanford (19 Howard, 393) in which he represented the defense and was credited by George Ticknor Curtis, one of Scott's attorneys, with being the major influence in bringing about the decision against the bondman (Proceedings, post, p. 12).

Johnson was an ardent Whig during the life of that party and later affiliated with the Democrats but never felt at home with them. In 1821 he was elected state senator from Baltimore and was returned to office in 1826 but resigned two years later because of the increasing demands of his profession. In 1845, when the Oregon and Texas questions were under discussion, he began his national career as a member of the United States Senate. On the Oregon question he attacked the administration and favored a boundary line following the forty-ninth parallel; in the matter of Texas, on the other hand, he deserted the Whigs to uphold Polk in prosecuting the war with Mexico. Yet he opposed the annexation of Mexican territory, for he feared that it would revive the whole problem of the extension of slavery. Although he thought that slavery was wrong, he believed that its expansion into the territories was a local concern, but, nevertheless, in order to avert the threatened disaster to the Union he urged compromise and suggested that the slavery question be submitted to the Supreme Court. In March 1849, he resigned from the Senate to become attorney-general under President Taylor, but his activities in this capacity were of little importance. He was soon under a cloud owing to an opinion he rendered on the Galphin claim in which Secretary of War Crawford had been attorney for the claimant. Before his death, Taylor was considering the dismissal of Johnson for his connection with the scandal, as well as that of Crawford, and of Meredith, the secretary of the treasury.

After Taylor's death Johnson resigned with the rest of the cabinet and soon became allied with the Democrats. He had much sympathy for the South, urged conciliation, and was a member of the futile peace congress held in Washington early in 1861. Secession, however, he looked on as treason and stood for the preservation of the Union. Hence he upheld Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, though he frequently urged leniency or acquittal for those charged with disloyalty. When he was chosen a member of the Maryland house of delegates in 1861 he worked hard to keep the state from seceding from the Union. The next year he was again elected United States senator but did not take his seat until 1863 because Lincoln soon sent him to New Orleans to investigate complaints of foreign consuls that General Benjamin Butler [q.v.] had seized their property. In the Senate he continued his moderate and conciliatory policy, championing the Constitution but occasionally giving way to expediency. He held that slaves who had enlisted in the army should be granted their freedom but was opposed to emancipating their families on this ground. In 1864 he supported McClellan for the presidency since he felt that the Emancipation Proclamation was unwise and resented Lincoln's interference in the Maryland and Kentucky elections. Though he had hoped that emancipation might come gradually, he voted for the Thirteenth Amendment.

In his attitude towards the South he stood out in strong opposition to Sumner's conquered province theory, for he held the Union to be indestructible. He favored the Wade-Davis plan of reconstruction, which Lincoln vetoed and, after Lincoln's assassination, generally supported Johnson in his policy towards the South. He was a member of the committee of fifteen on reconstruction and also sat on the later joint congressional committee. He fought the bill creating the Freedmen's Bureau, chiefly on account of the provision for trial by courts martial, and repeatedly he used his eloquence against arbitrary imprisonment and other violations of personal liberty. While he opposed negro suffrage because he felt that the blacks were unprepared for the responsibility, he finally voted for the Fourteenth Amendment as a means of ending military domination in the South. Yet, later, he voted for the bill dividing that region into military districts. For his various inconsistencies he was called a "trimmer" by his opponents, a term that was not entirely undeserved, 'though some of his shifts can be explained by his open-mindedness and natural lack of strong prejudices. In the quarrel between Congress and President Johnson, he gave the executive considerable support 'and obtained an amendment to the Tenure of Office Act permitting the president to continue making recess appointments. In the impeachment of Johnson he was a member of the committee on rules for the Senate acting as a court, and filed an opinion that Johnson was not guilty. He seems to have been largely responsible for the acquittal through convincing a number of wavering senators that Johnson would enforce congressional reconstruction.

In 1868 he was appointed to succeed Charles Francis Adams as minister to Great Britain, where he was well received, for he was known to favor the maintenance of friendship with the British, but, at home, he was severely criticized for his cordiality towards individuals whose actions had not been friendly to the Union. There were three questions entrusted to Johnson for settlement, the alienability of allegiance, the jurisdiction over the San Juan islands in Puget Sound, and the claims for damages done by the Alabama and other vessels built in Great Britain for the Confederacy. Agreements were promptly signed whereby the British government recognized the right of expatriation for British subjects and pledged itself to submit the San Juan question to arbitration. Johnson also negotiated a treaty for the settlement, by means of arbitral commission, of all financial claims arising between the two countries after July 26, 1853. The most important of the American claims were those for damages done by the Alabama and similar vessels. None of these agreements was ratified, chiefly owing to the fact that they were the work of a supporter of Andrew Johnson, but they did form the bases for later treaties.

After the election of Grant, Reverdy Johnson returned to the United States in the summer of 1869, and resumed his law practice. He defended many Southerners charged with disloyalty to the Union and was attorney for Allen Crosby, Sherod Childers, and others in the Ku Klux trials of South Carolina (Official Report of the Proceedings before the U. S. Circuit Court, Held at Columbia, South Carolina, November Term, 1871, 1872). In 1875 with David Dudley Field he obtained the acquittal of Cruikshank (United States vs. Cruikshank, 92 U. S., 542) who had been charged with fraud and violence in elections and indicted for conspiracy under the enforcement act of May 30, 1870. Still in active practice he died from an accidental fall while in Annapolis to argue a case before the court of appeals.

[Manuscript letters in Library of Congress; B. C. Steiner, Life of Reverdy Johnson (copyright 1914); Proceedings of the Bench and Bar of the Supreme Court of the U. S. in Memoriam Reverdy Johnson (1876); W. D. Lewis, Great American Lawyers, Volume IV (1908); H. W. Scott, Distinguished American Lawyers (1891); J. F. Essary, Maryland in National Politics (copyright 1915); Green Bag, July 1891; The Diary of Gideon Welles (3 volumes, 19u); Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (3 volumes, 1922), and A History of the American Bar (1911); W.W. Bowie, The Bowies and their Kindred (1899); Harper's Weekly, February 26, 1876; Sun (Baltimore), February 11, 12, 1876.]

M. W.W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 446-447:

JOHNSON, Reverdy, statesman, born in Annapolis, Maryland, 21 May, 1796; died there, 10 February, 1876. He was educated at St. John's college, studied law with his father, John Johnson, chancellor of the state, and was admitted to the bar in 1815. He began to practise in Upper Marlboro', Prince George county, was appointed deputy attorney-general for that judicial district, and in 1817 removed to Baltimore, where he practised with success. ln 1821 he was elected to the state senate for a term of five years, and soon distinguished himself for his intelligent, bold, and comprehensive discussion of the question of state and Federal policy that was agitating the country. He was re-elected for the succeeding term, but resigned at the end of the second year to become attorney-general in President Taylor's cabinet. In 1845 he was sent to the U. S. senate as a Whig, serving till 1849. One of the most striking characteristics of Mr. Johnson's public life was his occasional disregard of party dictation. A memorable instance of this independent action was his hearty support of the Mexican war measures of Polk's administration, in spite of the violent opposition of the Whigs. On the accession of President Fillmore, Mr. Johnson resigned, and for more than twenty years afterward he was exclusively engaged in his professional duties, appearing during that time in the trial of celebrated cases in almost every part of the country, from New England to California. In 1854 he was employed by some English claimants to argue a case in London before an Anglo-American commission. During his residence of several months in England he was received with marked attention by the barristers and judges of that country, and left a reputation behind him which had not been forgotten when, fourteen years afterward, he went as minister to the court of St. James. Whether in or out of office, Mr. Johnson was invariably outspoken in his opinions of all public matters. His decided opposition to the proscriptive doctrines of the “Know-Nothing” party led him, together with many of the Whig leaders in Maryland, to unite with the Democrats in 1856 and in the subsequent support of Buchanan's administration. In the presidential contest of 1860 Mr. Johnson joined the Douglas wing of the party, and was active in his efforts to secure its success. He was a member of the peace congress in Washington in 1861 and in 1862. Throughout the civil war he supported the National cause, and sustained the measures of the administration. When peace was restored he urged the readmission of the southern states without delay. He voted for the first reconstruction bill, supported that measure when it was vetoed by President Johnson, and opposed the second bill. During his term he was engaged by the government as an umpire in adjusting questions that had arisen in New Orleans during the civil war. In 1868 he resigned his seat in the senate, having been appointed by President Johnson to succeed Charles Francis Adams as minister to England, where he negotiated the “Johnson-Clarendon” treaty for the settlement of the Alabama claims, which was rejected by the senate. In his negotiations with Lord Clarendon he procured a perfect recognition of everything that our government claimed in the international controversies growing out of the civil war. The failure of the senate to ratify the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was due to party jealousy, and nothing more than was embraced in the terms of Mr. Johnson's protocol was afterward obtained from Great Britain. Mr. Johnson's popularity among Englishmen was proverbial, and his recall by President Grant, in 1869, and the nomination of his Republican successor became a party necessity. Although seventy-three years of age when he returned from England, he resumed his law practice with his early eagerness. In 1872 he supported Horace Greeley for president. He was constantly employed in court and office practice until his death, which was caused by apoplexy, and which took place at the executive mansion in Annapolis, where he had been the guest of the governor, and was awaiting the call of a case in the court of appeals. In conjunction with Mr. Thomas Harris he reported the decisions of the Maryland court of appeals, known as “Harris's and Johnson's Reports” (7 vols., 1820-'7). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 446-447.     


JOHNSON, Robert, New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


JOHNSON, Rowland, 1816-1886, New York, NY, reformer, abolitionist leader.  He was among the earliest supporters of the abolition movement, and at one time was the leader of the anti-slavery party in New York. Vice president, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1858-1864. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 448:

JOHNSON, Rowland, reformer, born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 24 May, 1816; died in West Orange, New Jersey, 25 September, 1886. His parents were members of the Society of Friends, and in early life he was a preacher of that denomination. In 1850 he removed to New York, and became a broker and commission-merchant in that city. He was among the earliest supporters of the abolition movement, and at one time was the leader of the anti-slavery party in New York. He was also one of the first members of the Union league club, and was active in charitable organizations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.      


JOHNSON, Samuel, 1822-1882, Unitarian clergyman, abolitionist, reformer, writer.  Unitarian in his associations, he was too radical an individualist ever to affiliate himself with any denominational body; strongly anti-slavery, and ardently humanitarian in sentiment.

(The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 312) Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 119-120)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 119-120:

JOHNSON, SAMUEL (October 10, 1822-February 19, 1882), independent liberal preacher, author, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of Timothy John so n who was living in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1674, and son of Dr. Samuel and Anna (Dodge) Johnson. His father was a prominent Salem physician, and Samuel grew up amid circumstances favorable to character and intellectual pursuits. At the age of sixteen he was ready for college, and four years later, 1842, ranking fourth in his class, he graduated from Harvard. He entered the Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1846, his course having been somewhat interrupted by the condition of his health, for the benefit of which in 1844 he made a trip to Europe. One of his classmates was Samuel Longfellow [q. v. ], and between the two a close and lasting friendship arose. The year their divinity course was completed they published A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, a Supplement to which appeared in 1848. Johnson began his ministry in the Unitarian church, Dorchester, Massachusetts, where his views on the social and political questions. of the day proved unacceptable, and he remained for only about a year. After preaching for some time to a society of liberals in Lynn, in 1853 he became their minister, a free church was organized, and Oxford Street Chapel was built, of which he continued in charge until 1870. He never married, and made his home at Salem until his father's death in 1876, after which he lived on an ancestral farm in North Andover. With Samuel Longfellow he visited Europe in 1860, remaining fifteen months, and during a portion of this time they worked on the compilation of Hymns of the Spirit, published in 1864. The hymns written by Johnson are of high excellence, some of the best known of which are "Father, in Thy mysterious presence kneeling," "Life of Ages richly poured," and "City of God, how broad, how far."

Although Unitarian in his associations, he was too radical an individualist ever to affiliate himself with any denominational body; strongly anti-slavery, and ardently humanitarian in sentiment, he joined none of the reform societies of his day, lest there be so me interference with the freedom of his soul. He was a lover of nature, with an interest in geology, and long walks were his principal diversion. A mystic and poet, he was also a clear thinker and a patient student, enthusiastically devoted to discerning the truth behind appearances and bringing human life into harmony therewith. Philosophically, he was a thorough-going Transcendentalist, friendly to science, and an evolutionist, but insistent that spiritual verities cannot be ascertained by scientific methods. As a preacher, lecturer, and writer he was an exponent of natural religion, "its intimations of God and duty and immortality." Much of his life was given to an interpretation of Oriental religions, with a view to disclosing the unity of human experience and the development of the religious consciousness through the ages. The published results are to be found in three sizable works, Oriental Religions and Their Relation to Universal Religion, India (1872), China (1877), and Persia, left not quite completed at his death, and published in 1885 with an introduction by Octavius B. Frothingham [q. v. ]. Selections from his manuscripts, Lectures, Essays, and Sermons, with a memoir by Samuel Longfellow, were published the year following Johnson's death.

[W. W. Johnson, Records of the Descendants of John Johnson of Ipswich and Andover, Massachusetts, with an Appendix Containing Records of Descendants of Timothy Johnson of Andover (1892); S. A. Eliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1910), Volume III; Atlantic Missouri, June 1883; Christian Register, February 23, 1882, March 2, 1882; John Julian, A Directory of Hymnology (1891); Boston Transcript, February 21, 1882.]

H. E. S.


JOHNSON, Thomas P., New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


JOHNSON, William, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.


JOHNSON, William Henry, 1833-1918, African American, abolitionist, journalist, lecturer, soldier.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 6, p. 504)


JOHNSTON, Nathan R., abolitionist, Topsham, Vermont, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1863-64.


JOLLIFE, J., Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1837-39


JONES, Absolom, 1746-1818, free African American, slave, first African American Protestant priest.  Founded Free African Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787. 

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 25-26, 156, 158-159, 280, 290, 294-295, 559-560)


JONES, B. S., co-founder and editor, with Elizabeth H. Jones, of the abolitionist newspaper, the Anti-Slavery Bugle, in New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1845.  They edited the paper until 1849.  It was the official newspaper of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 265)


JONES, Elizabeth H., co-founder and editor, with B. S. Jones, of the abolitionist newspaper, the Anti-Slavery Bugle, in New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1845.  They edited the paper until 1849.  It was the official newspaper of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 265)


JONES, John, 1816-1879, African American, abolitionist, civil rights activist and leader, conductor on the Underground Railroad. 

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 6, p. 555)


JONES, Norris, abolitionist, founding member, Electing Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nathan, 1991)


JONES, Richard, abolitionist, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Employ, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129)


JONES, Walter, 1776-1861, Washington, DC, general, soldier, noted constitutional lawyer.  American Colonization Society founding officer and Board of Managers, 1816, Vice-President, 1833-1841, Manager, 1834-1839, Director, 1839-1840.  Worked with Henry Clay and other notables. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 203-204; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 27, 51, 208)


JONES, William R., abolitionist, Maryland, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35.


JONSON, George W., New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, p. 35n)


JUDSON, Aaron, agent, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1834. Was a former student at the Oneida Institute.  Helped found Oneida County Anti-Slavery Society.

(Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 41-42)


JUDSON, Everton, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39.


JULIAN, George Washington, 1817-1899, Society of Friends, Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana, vice president of the Free Soil Party, 1852.  Member of U.S. Congress from Indiana, 1850-1851.  Was against the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.  Fought in court to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to their owners.  Joined and supported early Republican Party.  Re-elected to Congress, 1861-1871.  Supported emancipation of slaves.  Husband of Ann Elizabeth Finch, who was likewise opposed to slavery.  After her death in 1860, he married Laura Giddings, daughter of radical abolitionist Joshua Giddings. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III; Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. ix, 9, 10, 11, 13, 161-183, 210, 225-229, 259-260, 265-270; Riddleberger, 1966; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 54, 354-355; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 245-246; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 486-487; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 315)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 245-246:

JULIAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON (May 5, 1817-July 7, 1899), abolitionist leader, son of Isaac and Rebecca (Hoover) Julian, was born in a log cabin a mile and a half south of Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana. His father, descended from Rene St. Julien, a Huguenot who came to America about the end of the seventeenth century, was a soldier in the War of 1812 and at one time a member of the Indiana legislature. His mother, of German descent, was a Quaker, whose paternal ancestors were also those of Herbert Hoover. Isaac Julian died when George was only six years old, but by hard work and frugality the widowed mother managed to bring up the family of children. George attended the common schools, at eighteen taught a district school, presently studied law, and in 1840 was admitted to the bar, practising successively in Newcastle, Greenfield, and Centerville. In 1845 he was elected to the state legislature as a Whig, but voted with the Democrats against the repudiation of the Wabash and Erie Canal bonds. About the same time he began to write newspaper articles attacking slavery. Defeated in 1847 in an attempt to secure the Whig nomination for state senator, he presently joined the Free-Soil party and the next year attended the Buffalo convention that nominated Van Buren. His activities as an abolitionist had caused him to be ostracized by many former friends and associates and had even brought about the dissolution of a law partnership with his brother, but the political tide presently turned in his favor and in 1848, having been nominated for Congress by the Free-Soilers, he was elected, with the assistance of many Democratic votes. As a member of the little group of anti-slavery men in Congress he vigorously opposed the compromise measures of 1850. Beaten for reelection in that year, he resumed the practice of law but continued his advocacy of abolition both in speeches and in the press. In 1852 he was nominated for the vice-presidency by the Free-Soil party and took an active part in the campaign.

Julian's real opportunity came with the rise of the Republican party, of which the Free-Soil party had been a forerunner. In 1856 he participated in the Pittsburgh convention that formally organized the new party, and was chosen one of the vice-presidents and chairman of the committee on organization. His earnest fight for human freedom brought reward at last when in 1860 he was elected to Congress. Four times reelected, he speedily won a prominent place in legislative deliberations, and among the committees on which he served was the very important committee on the conduct of the war. He early began to urge the emancipation of slaves as a war measure, advancing the argument of John Quincy Adams, that such a step would be within the war powers of the president and Congress. As chairman of the committee on public lands he had an important part in the passage of the celebrated Homestead Act, a measure, he had urged in 1851. Though he thought Lincoln too slow in some respects and opposed his reconstruction plan, Julian refused to join in the attempt in 1864 to nominate Chase in Lincoln's stead. Julian favored punishing Confederate leaders and confiscating their lands and early advocated the granting of the suffrage to the freedmen. He stood, therefore, with the Radicals in their battles with President Johnson, and in 1867 was one of the committee of seven appointed by the House to prepare the articles of impeachment against the President. In 1868 he proposed an amendment to the Constitution conferring the right of suffrage upon women, a reform he continued to champion to the end of his life.

Failing of renomination in 1870, he devoted much of his time to recuperating his broken health and to compiling a volume of Speeches On Political Questions, published in 1872. He had come to be out of sympathy with the influences that dominated the Republican party nationally and in Indiana, and joined the Liberal Republican movement, presiding during parts of two days over the Cincinnati convention (1872) that nominated Horace Greeley. The next year he removed to Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, and for some years was occupied with writing and championing reform measures. He supported Tilden in the campaign of 1876, and two million copies of his speech, The Gospel of Reform, were distributed by the Democratic National Committee. In the years that followed he contributed notable articles on politics, the public lands, and other subjects to the North American Review and other periodicals. Meanwhile he was writing his Political Recollections 1840-1872, published in 1884. After the election of Cleveland in that year he was appointed surveyor general of New Mexico, a post for which he was particularly fitted. During his administration (July 1885-September 1889) he brought to light many flagrant frauds in connection with public land grants. In 1889 he published a volume, Later Speeches on Political Questions with Select Controversial Papers, edited by his daughter. His last important literary work was The Life of Joshua R. Giddings (1892). In 1896 he supported the Gold Democrats. He died at his home in Irvington in the summer of 1899.

Julian was twice married. His first wife was Anne Elizabeth Finch of Centerville, who died in November 1860, a few days after his election to Congress. His second wife, whom he married December 31, 1863, was Laura Giddings, daughter of Joshua R. Giddings [q.v.]. She died in 1884.

[Consult Julian's own Political Recollections (1884); George W. Julian (192 3), by his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke; and Indianapolis Sentinel, July 7, 1899. Julian also left an unpublished diary, containing much interesting and important historical material, which is in the possession of his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke, Indianapolis.]

P. L. H.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 486:

JULIAN, George Washington, statesman, born near Centreville, Ind., 5 May, 1817; died in Irvington, Ind., 7 July, 1899. He taught for three years, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1840. He was elected to the Indiana house of representatives in 1845 as a member of the Whig party; but becoming warmly interested in the slavery question through his Quaker training, severed his party relations in 1848, became one of the founders and leaders of the Free-soil party, was a delegate to the Buffalo convention, and was then elected to congress, serving from 3 December, 1849, to 3 March, 1851. In 1852 he was a candidate for the vice-presidency on the Free-soil ticket. He was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention of 1856, the first National convention of the Republican party, and was its vice-president, and chairman of the committee on organization. In 1860 he was elected as a Republican to congress, and served on the joint committee on the conduct of the war. He was four times re-elected, and served on the committee on reconstruction, and for eight years as chairman of the committee on public lands. He espoused the cause of woman suffrage as early as 1847, and in 1868 proposed in congress a constitutional amendment conferring the right to vote on women. During the discussions on reconstruction he was zealous in demanding the electoral franchise for the negro. In 1872 he joined the Liberal Republicans, and supported Horace Greeley for president. His most strenuous efforts in congress were directed to the championship of the homestead policy and the preservation of the public lands for the people. In May, 1885, he was appointed surveyor-general of New Mexico. He had published “Speeches on Political Questions,” containing a sketch of his life by Lydia Maria Child (Boston, 1872), and “Political Recollections” (Chicago, 1884), and had contributed to magazines and reviews articles dealing with political reforms.—His brother, Isaac Hoover, journalist, born in Wayne county, Ind., 19 June, 1823, removed to Iowa in 1846, resided there till 1850, and returning to Indiana settled in Centreville and edited the “Indiana True Republican,” which he afterward published in Richmond, Ind., under the title of “The Indiana Radical.” He occupied several local offices in that town, removed to San Marco, Texas, in 1873, and since that date has edited the “San Marco Free Press.” He has published, besides numerous poems, pamphlets, and essays, a “Memoir of David Hoover” (Richmond, Ind., 1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.


JUSTICE, Huldah, vice president of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 71, 74-75)



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.