Mt. Moosilauke (1915) - John E. Johnson
". . . John Edgar Johnson was born in Lowell, Mass., February 3, 1843. In 1862 he entered the sophomore class of the Chandler Scientific School at Dartmouth, and in 1865 received the degree of B.S. despite long absence in army service. For the college year 1865-66 he was a senior in the Academic Department, and received the degree of A.B. with the class of '66. He was a member of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity. A classmate recalls the applause which greeted the young Captain as he delivered an oration on the commencement platform. In 1916 he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts.
Early in the Civil War young Johnson had served as a newspaper correspondent with the Union Army, and at the close of his second year in college he enlisted and served as 2nd Lieutenant of the Martin Guards and Artillery Co., stationed at Fort Constitution, near Portsmouth, N.H. September 15, 1864, he became 1st Lieutenant of Co. K, 1st N.H. Artillery, stationed at Fort Reno, near Washington. February 15, 1865, he received a Captain's commission, and served with the 25th Army Corps on the Rio Grande. Here, incapacitated by fever, he was discharged September 29, 1865, and returned to College.
After his graduation Mr. Johnson studied at the Cambridge Divinity School and after his graduation there studied and traveled for a time in Europe, partly in the hope of finding a remedy for his growing deafness. In 1877 he was married to Martha Jackson Ward of Newton, Mass. His wife died in l911. They had no children. Entering the ministry of the Episcopal church Mr. Johnson was rector of churches in Hoboken and in Philadelphia. About 1880 he left the conventional ministry and became preacher in theater services in Philadelphia, with the support of George Leib Harrison, a wealthy lawyer and merchant. For more than twenty years Mr. Johnson continued these theater services, preaching to the "unchurched" in an informal, racy, witty style, well salted with yankee common sense, and at times touched with deep emotion.
A lover of the hills from his Dartmouth days, Mr. Johnson came back to New Hampshire for a summer home, and finally bought Sky Line Farm on Mann Hill in Littleton, with a superb outlook upon the near-by Franconias, and the Presidentials on the horizon. And this it was which brought him back to his Alma Mater. It is known that before the close of his life Mr. Johnson had given away literally all of his property, and was meeting his modest personal needs by his army pension alone. I cannot close this sketch of the life of our good, great friend better than by quoting the words with which he closed a letter to one of the undergraduate officers years ago. After saying that he cannot hope ever again to visit the College, he adds, "Hoping to meet you at last in the Delectable Mountains, I am yours till then and after."
Mr. Johnson would not feel at home in entering pearly gates and streets of gold, but - Delectable Mountains!"
Note: John E. Johnson produced the 1900 monograph "The Boa Constrictor of the White Mountains," exposing the cut-throat lumber practices of the N.H. Land Company set up by George B. James, helping to plant the seeds for the eventual formation of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the White Mountain National Forest. Rev. Johnson likewise promoted roadside verses for the spiritual benefit of mankind. - RWA
From Dartmouth Out-o'-Doors, 1935.
