Untitled Document

Swedes of Henry County

Capt. Eric Johnson

The son of the founder of Bishop Hill.

Eric Johnson was born in Vestmanland, Sweden on July 15, 1838, eight years before his father and his followers left Sweden. The family let Sweden in January of 1846, the route, Christiania, Copenhagen, Kiel, Hamburg, Hull and Liverpool and then to New York where they spent several months before going on to Knox County.

The first houses in Bishop Hill finished, the family moved there in September. Eric’s early schooling was from S.B. Randall who taught the colony in 1854.

When the Bishop Hill colony corporation dissolved in 1861. Eric began to farm the eleven acres given to him along with some rented property. In September of the same year, he enlisted in the volunteer army and was chosen lieutenant at the organization of Company D. 57 Ill. Regiment. After the battle of Shiloh he was promoted captain of the company, which was made up of entirely Swedes. During the siege of Corinth in the summer of 1862 Capt. Johnson was taken sick with typhoid fever and at the advice of the Army surgeon he resigned and returned north. In 1894 he was induced by the Republican leaders of Galva to become editor and publisher of the Galva Union. The venture was new to him and after a year he decided it was enough, but in 1868 he returned to the newspaper field again and assumed the editorship of the Altoona Mirror. After the election he became owner of the Galva Union which name was changed to the “Republican”. His connection with the “Illinois Swede” and “Nya Verlden” ( New World) had been shown.

In January 1871, Johnson was made journal clerk in the House of Representatives at Springfield, serving during the regular session and also the called session just following the Chicago fire and the adjourned session early in 1872. The year later he engaged in mercantile and laid business at White City, Kansas but failed after three years. because of drought and grasshoppers and returned to Illinois starting a new business in Nekoma as a hardware and lumber dealer.

In 1879 he was engaged in gathering material for “Svenskärne I Illinois”,(Swedes in Illinois) a book published by him and C.F. Peterson. The same year, in partnership with Joseph E. Osborn, Jhonson began publishing “ The Citizen” a weekly newspaper at Galva and later Moline, but sold his interest to his partner in 1882, following a disagreement as to the political policy of the newspaper. Next Captain Johnson held a position in the War Department at Washington resigning he became editor of the “Republican” at Stromburg, Neb. For one year and then was in the newspaper business in Holdrege, Neb. Until 1891. While there he was elected to the General Assembly in 1888, being the only independent in the legislature. In 1891 he was made chief clerk of the House of Representatives. And was reelected unanimously two years later.

After having been operating in Texas lands for a time Capt. Johnson in 1896 became the editor of the “Saunders County New Era”established 1890 at Waterloo, Neb.,as a Populist paper. With the subsidence of that movement lost prestige, turned Republican and continued by Capt. Johnson until the spring of 1906 when he suspended publication of the paper and sold the plant. His last venture in journalism was “The Viking” a Swedish-American monthly in the Englis language, published at Fremont, Neb from July 1906 to August 1907 when lack of support prompted his demise. In Oct. 1907 Capt. Johnson moved to Clearwater Calif. Where he remained until his death.

Capt. Johnson was married Jan. 31, 1863 to Mary Octavia Troil who died in 1890. Of their eight children three are living Axel T.,of St. Louis, Julia C.,of Omaha and Ernest G. publisher of the “Linsey(Neb) Opinion”. A son Sixtus Erik died in the Spanish-American War. On July 15,1902 Mr. Johnson married his second wife Georgia A. Tillinghast, who aided him in his editorial work.

From: Swedes in Illinois-1906

Submitted by Wini Caudell

Illinois Ancestors