Johnson Cemetery Comes Alive

The old house was abandoned and we were able to walk on our own to the burial ground.
 
We walked along a small two-track road that was surrounded on both sides by tall purple thistles and an old alfalfa field. All was green including the weeds that grew in the field. Two different flocks of wild turkeys crossed in front of us. The sky was covered in rain clouds, but no rain fell. Unconnected irrigation pipes flanked the sides of our path.
 

Johnson was settled in the 1870's by the four Johnson Brothers: Joel, Joseph, Benjamin, and William. Both Joel and Joseph happen to be my direct ancestors.
 
On January 2, 1871, Joel recorded in his journal: “I was ordained a Patriarch in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints under the hand of President Brigham Young, George A. Smith being the mouth. About this time President Young suggested to us that the Johnson family have what was called Spring Canyon twelve miles north of Kanab for a stock race and for all the family who wished to settle there, and requested us to go and look at it which we agreed to do as soon as we conveniently could.”
 
Sometime later he recorded: “. . . I started for home [from St. George] and arrived late in the evening, having previously made arrangements to meet my brother and some others at Virgin City on our way out to look at Spring Canyon Ranch near Kanab, agreeable to the request of President Young. We . . . found a beautiful canyon from half a mile wide [to] several miles long covered with grass, with small springs coming out at the bluffs on each side, and a small beautiful stream running from the mouth of the Canyon, plenty of excelled grass for meadow and stock range extending for many miles around. We were highly pleased with the place and concluded to accept the President's offer. Therefore we made arrangements for some of us to move there in the Spring and start a cooperative Stock Association for herding stock raising and dairy purposes, after which we all returned home. In the latter part of March I moved my wife Susan and her two boys Joel and Lamon out to Johnson and my brother William, who was stopping at Washington moved out his family also and my brother Joseph sent three young men.
 
“We took tolls, grain and seeds of many kinds for farming and gardening, and also trees and vines for orchards and vineyards. My two oldest sons Sixtus and Nephi also moved part of their families out and all went to work. Some to planting out fruit trees and vines, some to building cabins, others to plowing, planting, garden making etc. I then started for home and met my brother Benjamin at Virgin City on his way out to Johnson with farming tools or implements, grains, seeds, etc.”
 

Joel Hills Johnson (right) is buried in the Johnson Cemetery (left).

Detail on headstone of Joel Hills Johnson.

Another family that found their way to Johnson was that of Henrietta Bird Shumway, the third wife of Charles Shumway. They came from Mendon, Utah in Cache Valley. Her biography recounts her experience upon arriving at the canyon: “The farm, unfenced and uncleared had never known a plough. The only shelter was a deserted trapper's cabin, so small that when all the beds were made, Henrietta could scarcely walk between them to cook the meals.
 
“It was dangerously late in the year to be putting in crops, but they must if they were to survive the winter unaided. Even the halflings toiled like men, digging out the rocks and lugging them away to make fences; while each of the older boys were giants uprooting trees, and scrub and sage. Someone was always at the plough. It never ceased turning the soil from dawn to dark. They were lucky in their neighbors. Seeing their plight, the Johnson men came in a body and dug them an irrigation ditch to the creek, and their young ones helped with the planting.”
 

Headstone for Margaret and Richard Shumway, infant children of  Richard Franklin Shumway and Margaret Hannah Johnson Shumway.

During the next decade, more families moved to Johnson and the small community soon enjoyed an adobe brick school-church, a general store, and a post office. None of these continue to exist, as Johnson has become a ghost town. Only a handful of farms are sprinkled along the canyon.
 
The Johnson cemetery, which is about the only relic left of the former town, is very secluded in its own side-canyon. A very quiet and peaceful feeling is felt there. Inside the fence there is hardly a weed to be found. Every burial is from the 1800's. Most of the headstones are of the old type, hewn from stone. As we walked around we found the surnames of Johnson, Laws, Glover, and even a Shumway. However, a large portion of the burials, I believe, are unmarked. It is interesting that a lot of old-style nails are scattered across the ground. In the middle is a giant ant-pile. Some headstones were tipped over, while others had completely disappeared, yet we could tell there was a headstone there at one time.
 

Headstone for Conradine Albertine Sorenson Mariager Johnson, wife of Nephi Johnson, who is the son of Joel.  Conradine was born in Denmark and while in Johnson was very good friends with Henrietta Bird Shumway.

I don't know the history of the cemetery, but I believe that it has been cleaned up extensively from a neglected state. Elsinore Nelson, daughter of Sixtus Ellis Johnson, reported a visit to the cemetery in 1961 in search of her grandfather's grave: “It was in a beautiful spot at the foot of a hill. It was difficult to find among the tall grass and weeds [that] had grown around the graves, but we finally located it. There was a beautiful headstone with his name Joel Hills Johnson and this inscription on it 'Prepare to meet me in heaven.'”
 
Two of my family lines come together in this canyon—the Johnsons and Shumways. Peter Minnerly Shumway and Mary Elizabeth Johnson became acquainted when both their families lived in Johnson. They were married on December 17, 1879 in the St. George Temple. They didn't stay in Johnson long. In a couple months they made their way to Arizona with Peter's family, crossing Lee's Ferry and encountering blizzards and cold weather. They lived in several places in Arizona before settling down in Blanding, Utah.
 
Mary's mother, Editha Melissa Merrill Johnson, died four years before their leaving. I can find very little about her other than the usual dates and places. Elsinore Nelson wrote: “I have often heard Father speak of Aunt Editha as being a very kind, sweet mother to her children and a wonderful helpmate.” She had been sick for sometime and passed away on February 7, 1876. One source states that she died during child birth. She left behind seven children. As was the custom during days of polygamy, one of the other wives stepped in and raised the children as her own.
 
We searched and searched for Editha's grave, but was unable to locate it. As the cemetery is small, it is not difficult to check every headstone. We concluded that she is buried in an unmarked grave. Perhaps it was marked at one time, but over the years it had been knocked over, withered away, or crumbled.
 

After Jenelle and the younger girls left to go back to the vehicle, Kaitlyn and I were left alone to linger in the cemetery. She made the comment: “Wouldn't it be neat if the resurrection were to happen right now and all these people were to resurrect and we could talk to them?”—Yes, I would love that! To be able to hear their stories, listen to their voices, and see what they looked like—that would be absolutely amazing! ♠