Person:Francis Johnson (34)

Timeline researched by Mary Dixon and contributed Nov 2008: His Occupation was a Planter/ Farmer, riverboat owner & captain. Around 1840 at the age of 24, while still in South Carolina, he married his first wife. On 1 Jan 1842 at the Age of 26 in South Carolina his daughter, Ellen Johnson, was born. His first wife died when their daughter Ellen was born. In the early 1840’s, before the state of Mississippi transferred ownership of the area of the Choctaw Indian Nation in 1844, Francis arrived in the area. The families walked to Mississippi from South Carolina.

An entry was made for Francis Johnson in the first census for Sunflower County taken in 1845. He married Anne Elizabeth Sutton, daughter of John Sutton and Sarah Easterwood Sutton, nicknamed Nancy, who was born in Gibson County, Tennessee in February of 1828. The family is not listed in the 1850 Census of Sunflower County, Mississippi. In the late 1850's around the Age of 34, he came up the river from Vicksburg with a boatload of slaves to the southeastern part of Sunflower County, Mississippi, located at the junction of Mound Bayou and the Sunflower River. This area, called Johnson’s Landing, would later be the site of Johnsonville, the county seat of Sunflower County from 1871 to 1882. Upon arriving at this site he began to cut timber, saw logs, and then built houses. People began to move into these homes from the more remote sections of the county.

In May of 1851 in Mississippi, his son was born, Samuel William Johnson. On July 21, 1852 at the age of 37 his second daughter, Mary Lee (Molly) Johnson was born in the state of Mississippi.

In 1861, his daughter, Mary Lee was enrolled in the Urseline Convent in New Orleans, Louisiana. Later that same year New Orleans would fall to the Union forces. Information from a converstation with a representative of the Urseline Convent, New Orleans, La., conversations with her great granddaughter, Jenny Starnes.

In Dec 1869 at the Age of 54 his daughter, Mary Lee, married John Sebry Burch and moved into a residence nearby located on her father’s plantation. John Burch’s family from South Carolina lived nearby for a time and then relocated back the South Carolina sometime after 1880..

On September 8, 1873 Frank’s grandson, William Burch, was born by his daughter, Mary Lee Johnson Burch On October 11, 1873 at only one month of life William Burch dies in Sunflower County and is buried at the Johnson Cemetery. In Sunflower County on November 25, 1874, Frank’s daughter, Mary Lee Johnson Burch gave birth to his granddaughter, Ella. Ella Burch later became the wife of Dr. Thomas D. Morgan on April 26, 1899. Dr. Morgan was born on February 14, 1866, died on November 19, 1918 and was buried in the family plot now called Boyer Cemetery. On August 29, 1879, Frank’s daughter Mary Lee (Molly) Johnson Burch gave birth to his granddaughter, Bessie, in Sunflower County.

1. ↑ Email from Mary Dixon.
2.   Ancestry.com chart of Mary Dixon: J. B. Starnes trees.ancestry.com/fhs/home.aspx tid 91670 pg 0.