Class of 1863

Jesse Johnson died at his home at the St George Hotel, Brooklyn, N. Y., October 31.

He was born in Bradford, Vt., February 20, 1842, the son of Elliot P. and Sarah (Taylor) Johnson. His parents removed to Orford, N. H., where he fitted for college. He was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and Phi Beta Kappa.

After graduation he studied law at Albany Law School, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1864. In October of that year he entered an office in New York city as clerk, and a year later began practice for himself in Brooklyn. From 1869 to 1877 he was assistant corporation counsel. In 1889 he was appointed by President Harrison United States district attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and held the position four years. In 1897 he was appointed by Governor Black to the Supreme Court of the state to fill a vacancy caused by death, the term expiring in 1899. When not holding these offices he was in successful private practice until 1900, when he sustained a stroke of apoplexy, and was obliged to give up business. A large part of his time since his retirement he has spent at his summer home in Orford.

For many years Judge Johnson was actively engaged in politics. In 1888 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. In 1894 he was a delegate at large to the Constitutional Convention of the state, and as chairman of the Committee on Cities was the author of various important changes in the constitution.

Judge Johnson was the author of two volumes, one "The Testimony of the Sonnets," in which he sought to show that the sonnets ascribed to Shakespeare contain internal evidence that they were not of his composition, and the other a volume of letters written by him while abroad, entitled "Glimpses of Europe."

He was a member of the New England Society, the Vermont Society, the Brooklyn Club, and the Church of the Messiah. In 1913 Dartmouth conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

November 12, 1868, he was married to Sarah E. Russell of Brooklyn, who died in 1897. Their only son, Jesse William Johnson, survives his parents. In 1902 occurred his second marriage, his wife, who survives him, being Mary Adaline Prichard of Worcester, Mass.