Johnson, Thomas, a Methodist minister and member of the first territorial legislature of Kansas, was born in the State of Virginia on July 11, 1802. His parents were poor people and he was thrown on his own resources almost from boyhood. At a comparatively early age he went to Missouri, where he prepared himself for the Methodist ministry and filled a number of charges under the auspices of the Missouri conference. In 1829 he established the first mission school among the Shawnee Indians in what is now Johnson county, Kan., where he continued his labors for some ten or twelve years, when failing health caused him to resign. He then went to Cincinnati, Ohio, for medical treatment, after which he lived near Fayette, Mo., until his health was fully regained. In the fall of 1847 he again entered upon his work at the mission and remained there until after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. On March 30, 1855, he was elected a member of the territorial council from the First district. He was a pronounced pro-slavery man and is credited with having brought the first negro slaves to Kansas. In 1858 he retired from mission work and bought a home about 2 miles from Westport, Mo. Notwithstanding his views on the slavery question, when the Civil war broke out he stood by the Union. This caused him to become a marked man by the guerrillas and bushwhackers, and on the night of Jan. 2, 1865, he was killed by a gang of armed men at his home, the bullet that ended his life passing through the door while he was in the act of fastening it to keep out the maurauders. In 1829, about the time he first came to Kansas, he married Miss Sarah T. Davis of Clarksville, Mo., who survived him for some time.