EMERSON JOHNSON.

BY DR. JAMES H. JACKSON.

Hon. Emerson Johnson, of the Jackson Sanatorium, died at the Brightside home at five o'clock Saturday, May 2nd. He died in the ripeness of years, falling asleep like a tired child at the close of a long summer day.

Mr. Johnson was born August 11th, 1812, in the Town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. His grandfather, James Johnson, held the original grant of the homestead farm, and was one of the earliest volunteers to enlist in the war of the revolution. His son, James Jr., father of Emerson, inherited the family estate, and was also a prominent citizen of Massachusetts, serving two terms in the State Legislature. Emerson was the seventh and youngest of his father's children. He received his education in the common and high schools of his town, finishing it at the celebrated Wilbraham Academy. He remained upon the homestead farm engaged in agriculture and lumbering until the year 1866. He was more than ordinarily successful as a business man, evolving out of the hard soil of his native town a considerable fortune. He filled many offices of trust in his native town, that of assessor for six years, for ten years a member of the school committe and as examiner of teachers and school visitor. In politics, Mr. Johnson was successively a whig, free soiler and Republican. In 1851 and again in 1861 he was elected to the House of Representatives of Massachusestts, and in 1865 chosen to the State Senate. His influence won the vote, which turned to Charles Sumner, gave him one majority, and elected him to the United States Senate, a service which Senator Sumner gratefully acknowledged.

Mr. Johnson married in 1838 Miss Hannah Arnold, of Sturbridge. Three children were born of this marriage. James A., Katherine and Hannah. His son, James, responded to his country's call in 1861, and was killed at Spottsylvania Court House while

commanding his company. The Grand Army Post of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, bears his name. Mr. Johnson married for his second wife, Miss Fanny L. Brown, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke Seminary, with whom he lived nearly fifty years. Mr. Johnson's daughter Katherine, married Dr. James H. Jackson, and Mr. Johnson came to Dansville to live with his children in 1866. He was very actively identified with the Jackson Sanatorium as steward, and superintendent of its out-door affairs. With faithful labor, great talent and money he materially promoted the growth and success of this great health institution. Mr. Johnson was shrewd, but kindly in all his business transactions, and interested in the intellectual and moral, as well as material welfare of the many workmen whom he employed. His private charities to these, and to others, were numerous and constant. He was filled with the spirit of public enterprise. His contributions were liberal to churches, and business enterprises promising good to Dansville.

It was in his domestic and religious life that Mr. Johnson was at his best. A man of strong religious convictions, he struggled bravely against the stern theology of the early days of New England. He loved and studied the Bible, and committed to memory many favorite passages. He was a great reader of sermons and theological works, and studied out the knotty questions of life for himself. He lived to see the great preachers of the age standing on the advanced ground of liberal thought that he had reached in his early manhood; and to behold the austere faith of Jonathan Edwards, adorned with the graces of love and mercy. In a childlike confidence, this great strong man of majestic presence, lived and died. He was a faithful attendant upon christian worship, rarely missing the morning chapel exercises at the Jackson Sanatorium for fifteen years. Mr. Johnson will long be remembered by the citizens of Livingston county for his manliness, his gentleness, sterling character and intellectual and practical ability. His mortal body lies buried in Greenmount cemetery at Dansville.

JAMES MARSHALL.

BY REV. J. E. KITTREDGE.

Rev. James Marshall, D. D., late president of Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a member of this Historical Society, was born in the township of Grove, Allegany County, New York, the 4th of October, 1831, and died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, September 11th, 1896. He came of sterling and of soldier stock. His grandfather was a Scotch Irishman and a soldier in the war of the Revolution.

Early in the century he settled in Livonia, near Conesus Lake, and around him grew up quite a large family of sons and daughters. The father was James Marshall, a native of Pennsylvania and a soldier in the war of 1812. He was attracted to Allegany county for a few years by the cheapness of the land, but returned, when young Marshall was but a year old, to the region of the old home in Livingston county, where he died in 1845.

On the side of his mother, Elizabeth Stilwell, our friend was descended directly from the Tennents of New Jersey, who founded the famous "Log Cabin," Neshaminy, Pa., from which sprang Nassau Hall, now Princeton College. The great grand sire, Daniel Stilwell, was in the battles of Monmouth and Trenton of the Revolution, and the grandfather, Samuel Stilwell, was one of the early settlers of our Genesee valley. Patriotism and Presbyterianism came to our friend therefore quite naturally, as the good inheritance from the ancestral family on both sides.

Young Marshall gave evidence, as a boy, of a special aptitude for books and ambition for a liberal education. He had health, a will and frugal habits, but circumstances were straitened, the family of brothers and sisters was large and the mother was widowed. The way to college halls seemed effectually barred. However, he attended the district schools of Lakeville and Groveland, then studied English and the sciences at Canandaigua Academy, under Profs.