"An Illustrated History of Whitman County, state of Washington." San Francisco:
W. H. Lever, 1901.  p. 340.
 
GEORGE S. JOHNSON

     The honored Civil war veteran and esteemed pioneer of the west whose name
appears as the caption of this article is a native of Maryland, born September
11, 1845. In the state of his nativity he acquired a rudimentary education in
the public schools there established.
     When thirteen years old he shipped on a schooner, and later on a
full-rigged ship, and followed this life for four years. During this time he
doubled Cape Horn, and once was shipwrecked at Cape Hatteras. His ship was
finally towed into Norfolk, Virginia, and he quit the sea. On October 11, though
only seventeen years old at the time, he enlisted in Company B, First Delaware
Cavalry, and from that date until the close of the war his fortunes were those
of a soldier in arms. He participated in many a hard-fought engagement, once
having a wrist broken by having a horse fall on him. He fought bravely and well,
and his military career was in all respects a laudable one and one of which his
family have reason to be proud. On June 30, 1865, he was mustered out of the
service in Baltimore, Maryland, and within a few months he was en route, via
Panama, to the Eldorado of the West. Shortly after his arrival in California he
went to Nevada, where he mined a short time, thereafter going to Arizona, in
which territory another year was consumed in the search for nature's hidden
treasures. Returning, at length, to California, he followed farming there until
the spring of 1876, when he came to Oregon. He worked in Portland for a year,
then, in 1877, came to Whitman county, and located on a quarter section of lieu
land about seven and a half miles northwest of Pullman, where we now find him.
Owing to the fact that the land was claimed adversely by the Northern Pacific
Railroad, he has not to this day perfected his title thereto, but every barrier
has now been removed and he expects to make final proof within a year.
     Mr. Johnson is a thrifty and progressive man and one of the forces which
make for progress in the county. Though not ambitious in a political way and
never a candidate for any office, he takes the interest that every good citizen
should in the general welfare of the community, state and nation. His life has
ever been so ordered as to win and retain the esteem and good will of those who
know him and his standing in the community is a very enviable one; In fraternal
connection he is an Odd Fellow, and in religion an adherent to the faith of the
Christian church, his membership being in the local organization at Guy.
     Our subject was married in Colfax, Washington, on June 29, 1892, when Miss
Mary M. Hennis, a native of Kansas, became his wife.
     It is of interest to record that when Mr. Johnson first came to the section
in which his home now is he slept on his saddle blanket on the site of the
present town of Pullman. At that time no person resided within miles of the spot
in any direction.
 

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Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in July 2009 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.