Joseph JOHNSON, Congress, VA (1785-1877)

JOHNSON, Joseph, (uncle of Waldo Porter Johnson), a Representative from Virginia; born in Orange County, N.Y., December 19, 1785; moved with his mother to Belvidere, N.J., in 1791 and thence to Bridgeport, Va. (now West Virginia), in 1801; engaged in agricultural pursuits; served in the War of 1812 as captain of a company of Virginia riflemen; member of the State house of delegates in 1815, 1816, and 1818-1822; elected as a Jackson Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth Congress (March 4, 1823-March 3, 1827); chairman, Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings (Nineteenth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1826 to the Twentieth Congress; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-second Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Philip Doddridge and served from January 21 to March 3, 1833; was not a candidate for renomination in 1832; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-fourth Congress and reelected as a Democrat to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1835-March 3, 1841); chairman, Committee on Accounts (Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1840; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1844; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1845-March 3, 1847); chairman, Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Twenty-ninth Congress); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1846; again a member of the State house of delegates in 1847 and 1848; resumed agricultural pursuits; delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention of 1850 and 1851; elected Governor of Virginia in 1851, serving a short term, reelected and entered upon the duties of the office January 1, 1852, and served four years; died in Bridgeport, Harrison County, W.Va., February 27, 1877; interment in the old Brick Church Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present