The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1882-06-03
OLDEST INHABITANT.
Henry Johnson, COlOred Man
100 Years Old,
An Interesting Sketch of His Event
full Life.
cleveland Leader.

OBERLIN, May 22.-This morning we
called upon the oldest inhabitant, at his
residence, on North Water street. From him
and from other sources we learn that Henry
Johnson was born a slave, on the plantation
of Spencerware, in King and Queen county,
Virginia, in the year 1878, where he re-
mained until about eighteen years of age,
when his fathers family was separted on the
auction block, never to meet again. After a
time he became the property OF Humphrey
Marshall, ST., through gift of his wife's
father, and lived with them at Frankfort,
KY.
Here be helped to make the brick for the
old Mansion House, and was afterwards the
servant of the famous Colonel Dick Taylor
whose record was made in the Revolution
ary was. He was at this time landlord of
the Mansion House. In the war of 1912
johnson was hired out to work on the for
tifcations at New Orleans, and became an
assistant in the household of General Andrew
Jackson. On the morning of the final and
memorable struggle below the city between
the British regulars and the citizen defenders
of New Orleans January 8, 1915, Johnson
himself waited upon General Jackson, car
rying the water to his tent for him to wash
himself with, and in the afternoon, after Lord
i
been killed and one thousand nine hundred
more wounded and taken prisoners, saw the
invaders pass by on their way to the rear,
| and later cleaned Jacksons sword and clothes
and was employed for several weeks follow
ing in cleaning the captured arms before
sending them to the arsenal at Louisville.
AT this time he was married man, and
| afterwards entertained at his house in
| Frankfort one of the men who had been taken
prisoner at New Orleans. While he was a
| slave at Frankfort, Marshall's five sons were
born, among them Thomas and Humphrey
| ir., whose military career was cut short in the
late civil war by General Garfield with goo
men putting him, with $500 men, to rout on
January s, 1881, at Paintville, KY.
| johnson became the property of young
| Humphrey Marshall, and worked for him in
Frankfort and Louisville until about 1880
when he ran away to escape a threatened
/ whipping. He went first to Frankfort, and
from thence on horseback north, crossing into
Ohio at Ripley, riding all the way to Glib
raltar, where he crossed to Maiden, Canada
His journey was beset with far less dangers
| than it would have been twenty or thirty
years later, yet his recital of his escape j.
| very thrilling. He came to Oberlin soor
after his arrival in Canada, and has liveC
here ever since.
He was married three times but has nt
family living except his present wife, who
with what the little garden patch produces
and what she earns by taking in washing
supplies his few wants.
Although blind for ten years he. has beer
able until recently to help himself some, ant
is able to walk about
His memory is very clear on his persona
periences, but he remembers little else. al
though he recalls the talk about Genera
Washington as well as about General Gar
field.
He is genial and happy APPARENTLY an
one hundred and nine years old can be, an
says that God has taken care of him so ia
and he is willing to trust him for the future
but he does not expect to last much longel
He is a finely formed mulatto, somewhs
bald and quite gray, cannot read or write bu
is good talker, and is undoubtedly entitle
to the appellation of "oldest invidual," S
far as heard from.