Albert H. Johnson Papers

Albert Harrison Johnson, the son of Isaac Miller Johnson (1811-1892) and Cornelia E. Mussey (1816-1865), was born in Elyria, Ohio on August 19, 1838*. Ge had numerous siblings: Henry Mussey (1836-1909), Edward Payson (1840-1915), James Birney (1843-1912), Mary Alice Crocker (1845-1850), William Wilberforce (1847-1850), Charles Sumner (1852-1923), Mary Cornelia (1855-1929), and William Norman (1856-1930). The family moved to Oberlin in 1850 and took over a relative’s dry goods business. Once they had taken up residence in Oberlin, Isaac Johnson helped to organize the Citizens’ National Bank, where Albert later worked as a cashier. Albert Johnson attended Oberlin College Preparatory school from 1853-1857, and went on to attend Oberlin College from 1862-1865, never completing a degree.

In 1866, Johnson married Rebecca Ann Jenkins (1842-1915) of New Athens, Ohio, who had graduated from Oberlin College in 1865. Rebecca Jenkins did not go on to pursue a career, but she and Albert Johnson had a son, Albert Mussey Johnson (1872-1948), and a daughter, Cliffe Updegraff Johnson (1867-1943).

The family took residence in Oberlin at 81 East College Street until Albert Johnson bought twenty-six acres of property on South Professor Street, part of which had been previously owned by Professor James Dascomb (1808-1880). In the early 1880s, Albert contracted with Cleveland architect George Horatio Smith (1848-1924) to design a mansion to be built on this property; in 1885, the Johnson House was completed. The Johnson family resided at the 216 South Professor St. mansion of 24 rooms between 1885 and 1899.

During a professional career that spanned 3 decades, Albert Johnson occupied a wide variety of local and community-based positions. He was the president of the First National Bank of Oberlin, like his father (1870-1873), and also helped to organize the Oberlin Bank Company and Oberlin Telephone Company. Albert served as Superintendent of Sunday School at the Second Church of Oberlin for thirty-seven years. Maintaining contact with Oberlin College, Johnson helped establish the Oberlin College Chair of Political Science and Modern History for Professor James Monroe (1821-1898), served as a Trustee for Oberlin College from 1884-1899, and chaired the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees. He also generously donated to the college throughout his lifetime.

Johnson served as president of the Oberlin Gas Lighting Company and oversaw the 1889 construction of the gas-holding building, a storage holder for manufactured coal gas.  Still located at 291 South Main Street, for many years it served many other purposes, but it is now maintained as a local historical site. In the coming years, as most gas-based lighting systems were converting to electric power, Albert Johnson turned his company into the Oberlin Gas & Electric Company and wired the city for its new source of lighting. Johnson remained president of the company until his death in 1899.

Despite his devoted professional and charitable involvement with the Oberlin community, Johnson’s business life also kept him away from home. He became president of the Arkansas Midland Railroad Company, and was eventually sworn in as the president of the company. He also served as the president of a small bank located in Helena, Arkansas.

On December 4, 1899, Albert Johnson and his son, Albert Mussey Johnson, were traveling through Utah and Colorado by train when they were involved in a collision with another locomotive. Their train had stopped on the tracks to tend to a horse caught in a trestle when another train came veering around the corner and crashed into the rear sleeper car of the Johnson’s train, the very car where Albert H. Johnson was sleeping. While Albert Mussey Johnson survived the wreck with a severely broken back, the collision killed Albert Sr. Albert Harris Johnson was 61 years old at the time of his tragic death.

Through the efforts of Charles Martin Hall (1863-1914), Oberlin College acquired the Johnson House property in 1912, and was used for the Oberlin Academy for the next four years, and as a college dormitory and program-house ever since.

*Johnson’s birth date is listed differently in each of the sources consulted.

Sources Consulted

The Albert H. Johnson Papers (30/378).

The student file of Albert H. Johnson, Alumni records, OCA (28/1).