Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-01-30
E. johnson Charges
Parent With SANDER.
ESTABLISH LEGITIMACY
A Story Of FaithleSSnesS and Double
Life That Rivals Romance
Details Given.

NcOISc II. JOlIlSOI, d COlltClUl Ill LAC
employ of the Montana Meat company,
will go to Trenton. N. j., in a few days
for the purpose of bringing an action
against the ~Bridgetown Evening News
for criminal libel and suing his father,
Captain Edward Johnson, for damages
for alleged slanderous conduct towards
him. While in the having business he
will also establish his own legitimacy.
With a view to making the cases as
strang as possible young Johnson has
had made in this city four affidavits of
his good character and will lake them to
Trenton with him. In order to have heir
genuineness attested he called at the Of
flee of the county clerk n recorder
about 4:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon
and had the clerk certify that the mo-
torial seal attached to them was a matt
ter of record.
johnson lived in Virginia City, New,
many years and is we'll known there. On
Christmas day of 1898 he attempted to
shoe his father at Vineland, New Jer-
sey, but failed to, make a bullseye. For
the offense he vas tried and acquitted.
If the story related by Johnson is true,
n there is no reason to believe other
wise, ne Is llkeIy 10 create d sensation IN
New Jersey. He says that in May of
1861 his father, Captain Edward Johnson,
enlisted in the Thirty-first New York vol
unteerS under the name of Edward john
son and mustered himself out on Septem-
Der n of the same year. On February
IA, 1865, he re-enlisted at Bridgeport,
Ala, as Captain Edward Johnson of the
Sixty-eighth New York volunteers. and
at the close of the wal was appointed
provost marshal at Atlanta, Ga. While
in the army he sent his wife in New
York a message to the effect that he was
dead, the message being delivered by his
brother. William H. Johnson. The wife
believed herself to be a widow and sailed
for California via the Isthmus of Pana-
ma, a passport having been issued to her
by the state department of the govern
ment on December II, 1861. On Septem-
Der 10 Of that year Johnson's father
passed through a marriage ceremony
with another woman in a private room
in New York, but this fact did not be-
come known to young Johnson until
three years ago, as he was known in San
Francisco on June II, 1862. When he
learned of 1t he addressed a letter to his
father, and the latter branded him as an
imposter and had the letter published in
the New York Journal. Young Johnson
was then mining in Colorado, but had
business in New York. While in that
eli, he learned through Calvin Pratt,
then judge in the superior court, hat
his father vas not dead. He also learned
from Judge Pratt that his father had
passed through a marriage ceremony
with another woman while young john
sons mother was laboring under the inn
preston he was dead, and was referred
to Captain David Lamb, who witnessed
the ceremony, for a bill of particulars.
Johnson examined the New York mus
ter rolls M found that there had been
only W. New York Captain Johnsons
from the beginning to the close of the
war. He then went to Washington and
found that his father had been drawing
a pension of SIS per month for over thir-
ty years., the papers or rolls showing the
Johnson of the Thirty-first New York
and Captain Edward Johnson of the
Sixty-eighth New York. This is the point
at which he wrote the old man the let
ter. After the publication of the letter
Young Johnson says he went to Vine
land, N. j., the old mans home. to see
him and found him with a wife and fine
grown children who had been educated
in Europe. He made an appointment to
meet Johnson, senior, at 2 o'clock in the
afternoon and wanted the inter-
view to be private, but when the
meeting occurred the old man had two re-
porters present. He refused to talk pri-
vately. He claimed to have been mar
ried to his present wife ON December 10,
1861, in Grace church.. New York and the
wife. being present, co%rroborated his
statement. The oun maj then told her,
she was as guilty as his father as he had
a witness to prove it.
AS a result of the interview young
Johnson says he became i'll and while i'll
and while confined to his room the old
published an affidavit branding him
as an ~adventurer. In retaliation Johnson
junior says he published a card in which
he stated that the woman with whom his
was living was his mistress and
the children that had been born to them
were not legitimate. He also forced the
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