Transcript:Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts:Johnson, Robert, 1645

Robert Johnson, B. A., was son of Robert Johnson, who came from Kingston upon Hull, in Yorkshire, England, and was one of the early settlers of New Haven. The son went to Rowley, Massachusetts, where he had an uncle, "and was said to be a very promising candidate for the ministry, and was to be settled there, but died young." His will, dated "13 of the 7th mo. 1649," and proved in Court "the 26th of the first mo. [March] 1650," is recorded in the eighty-fifth volume of the Essex Registry of Deeds. He states that he is "sick & weake of Body But of perfect memory." After the payment of his debts, he orders "that out of the remaynder of" his "goods somthing be distributed unto the pore of Rowley according unto the Discression of" his "Cosen Thomas Barker & Humfrey Reyner," whom he makes his executors. "That which may remayne," he says, "I doe Assigne it to be returned unto my father Robert Johnson of the new haven." The witnesses to his will were his executors and John Brock, H. U. 1646. Other evidence of his early death is found in the fact that his father, who died in 1661, mentions in his will his wife and his three sons, Thomas, John, and William, but makes no allusion to Robert. William, the brother of the graduate, was grandfather of the Reverend Samuel Johnson, D. D., of Stratford, sometimes called the father of Episcopacy in Connecticut.

Authorities.— E. E. Beardsley, Letters, 1869, July 12, August 30, and 1871, February 14, containing extracts from the Reverend Doctor S. Johnson's Manuscripts and the will of R. Johnson, senior. J. Farmer, Genealogical Register, 163; and Memorials of the Graduates of Harvard University, 42; Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, iv. 78. J. Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii. 556, 557. M. A. Stickney, Letters, 1869, July 31, and August 30, containing copy of his will, &c.