Thias Johnson Sr (b. 1763, d. 1830)

I have a long way to go on Thias Johnson Sr, which is going to involve actual archival research and not just computer games with census data and e-books. Thias lived at a time that is tough for genealogy. The first US Federal Census was taken in 1790, but not until 1850 did they enumerate and list by name every individual in a household. From 1790 to 1830, they listed by name only the head of the household and tallied the other members according to age, gender, and race. As you might imagine, this affords much less information to later generations. Wives’ names and children’s names help identify a family and offer clues to family trees. For this time range, you really need to work with church records, gravestones, deeds, and local archives. Then again, every day, more and more information is uploaded to the web, so sometimes you get lucky just by waiting.

What is it that I want to know about Thias Johnson? Some of this I have written about before. I’ll just encapsulate here. In trying to find William Melancthon Johnson’s ancestors, all I had found was that his father was Thias Johnson and his mother Sarah McDougall. To bet back farther, I searched for 'Thias Johnson’ in ancestry records and found a promising family tree that started in Charlestown, MA in the early 1600s. From there, the family was among the founders of Marlborough, MA, near Framingham. I found a Thias Johnson born in 1733 and another, his nephew, born in 1762. So on the one hand, I had a Thias Johnson in Cambridge, NY born in 1783 and on the other a Thias Johnson born in 1762 in Marlborough, MA. Did they connect? There's only a difference of one generation! The Thias in Cambridge could be the son of the Thias in Marlborough!

I found some curious notes on US military pensions paid in 1818-1832 to 'Thias Johnson.' I figured these must be for the Cambridge, NY Thias Johnson, father of Wm Melancthon Johnson, who died in 1843. I found a couple other similar records and filed them under 'Thias 1783.' Then, as I was nosing around somewhere, I saw some mention of a decision by the US Congress to pay Revolutionary War pensions; the legislation was dated 1818! So, 40 years after the Revolutionary War, they decided to pay pensions to soldiers still living. The light bulb was when I realized that the pension payments were to Thias 1762, of Marlborough. One record even said that he was a resident of Cambridge, NY and had served in the Massachusetts Line (a regiment of the Continental Army).

Thias Johnson (b. 1762) first enlisted at Bernardston, MA. He enlisted a second time at Guilford, VT.

Not long after Thias finished his Revolutionary War service, he was living in Guilford, VT. On 13 May 1786, he was appointed “hog constable” of the town. A lofty position indeed. At least it places him in Guilford in 1786. The next I find him is in Stillwater, NY, in 1818, when he first applied for a Revolutionary War pension. Apparently, he lost his discharge papers when his pocket book fell in the Deerfield River as he was crossing. He had to go through a long involved bureaucratic process to prove he fought in the Revolutionary War and merited a pension. Eventually, he got the pension and was paid $8 per quarter from April 1818 until his death in November 1833. 

A page from Thias Johnson Sr's Revolutionary War pension application

Thias’s pension application also shows him living in Easton, Washington County, New York, seven miles from Cambridge, in 1820. In that year, he had to do some more wrangling about his pension. A notarized letter from him states that his wife at the time was Hannah, aged 47 years, and his son Stephen Van Rensselaer was 7 yrs old. Apparently, the boy was Hannah’s by a previous marriage. In his pension application, Thias enumerates all his worldly belongings: 1 axe, 1 hoe, 2 scythes, 1 cooper's axe, 1 cooper's adze, 2 draw shaves, 2 planes, 2 jigs, and 1 stove, for a total value of $40.

A letter from Thias pointing out his penurious circumstances.

When it comes right down to it, there is nothing to show that Thias Sr lived in Cambridge. So far, no one has found his grave or any other documents on his whereabouts when alive. By all appearances, we have a link between Thias Johnson (b. 1762) and Thias Johnson (b. 1783). So far, however, there is no hard evidence that the two are father and son. 

This has really bedeviled me. Therefore, I was amused and excited when I got a message from a librarian in Georgia asking me to please contact Doris Davies by e-mail as she also was researching Thias Johnson and had information on his children. That contact revealed that there is a branch of Johnsons of the same tree in the Macon, Georgia area, of particular interest, because of the name, Melancthon Brown Johnson Sr & Jr.  After Doris put me in touch with a cousin, Stephen Johnson, we had a sort of three way conversation. Stephen, and his father, over the decades have been in touch with Johnsons in Washington County, New York. Stephen’s father had a long and rambling, fairly incoherent letter from Henry Warner Johnson (son of Wm Melancthon Johnson, the pastor), which must have been before 1949, when he died. HWJ mentioned that his father and grandfather both were named Thias Johnson, which gives us at least some circumstantial evidence of the relationship. Stephen also told me some of the links to Georgia and also about links to Johnsons in Ohio. That of course got me going on even more computer games and turned up lots of Johnsons in the Columbus Ohio area and in Fort Worth, TX, of all places.  Hopefully, I’ll get  more details after the Holidays from both Doris and Stephen. It seems they both do this the old way, interviewing people and visiting archives and cemetaries. It takes both kinds. Perhaps we can finally figure out Thias Johnson Sr by putting our heads together.

After the holidays, Stephen will send me copies of all his family tree stuff. He even has a photo of William Melancthon Johnson.