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Descendants of Louis Johnson

Generation No. 1

1. LOUIS¹ JOHNSON was born in Ireland?, and died 1865. He married MARY JANE REED Abt. 1854 in Orange County, Virginia, daughter of JOHN REED and MARY. She was born July 04, 1841 in Orange County, Virginia, and died April 12, 1916 in Norwich, Connecticut.

Notes for LOUIS JOHNSON:
Louis Johnson was Irish. My grandmother, Cecelia, said he drank himself to death at an early age. This was the reason for Dr. Johnson's lifelong aversion to alcohol, according to her.

The following is a literal transcription of a portion of a typewritten letter written on December 19, 1967 to C. Ellen Connally by Vivienne Eunice Cooke Stokes concerning Louis ( Lewis) Johnson:

      " Your mother's father (sic) was married when she was 13 and from what I learned from my mother, her father, Lewis Johnson was a drunkard. He would almost take the shoes off the children's feet for liquor and that is why grandma was so bitterly opposed to liquor & from that experience hate the Irish until her death. He father and mother were Scotch. Lewis Johnson died when grandma was 24 and my mother was an infant. She (grandma) attached her son to herself and became very possessive with him and turned him against liquor. After Aunt Hattie's death, Uncle Charlie had grandma come down south to care for Annie. She wanted the 3 of them to be a family and there fore when he married your grandmother, she was very bitter about it.
      "As to what my grandfather's occupation was, I never heard. He evidently did not stay sober long enough to work at any particular thing.
      "My Aunt was born when her mother was 16 and there was about 4 years difference between each child."

More About LOUIS JOHNSON:
Medical Information: Alcoholic.

Notes for MARY JANE REED:
Mary was either white or mulatto. She lived in Washington, DC during the time her son Charles Catlett Johnson was growing up, and family tradition states that while he sold newspapers on the streets of DC to help make ends meet, she ran a boarding house. She married a black man named Nicohas Poindexter after Louis died and had more children for him. Vivienne Eunice Cooke Stokes set the number of Poindexter children at 5 in a letter dated December 19, 1967 and in the possession of C. Ellen Connally. This is probably why Charles, even though he had blonde hair, blue eyes and very fair skin, considered himself a Negro--to fit in with the rest of the family. She is buried in Yantic Cemetery, Norwich, Connecticut.

In the following literal transcriptions of 3 newspaper clippings from unidentified newspapers that give her obituary (most likely prepared from the same text) , Mary Jane Reed Poindexter's maiden name is rendered as "Breed."

1. "Mrs. Mary Jane Poindexter.
After an illness of several years the life of Mrs. Mary Poindexter came to a peaceful end on Wednesday morning at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Robert Holmes, John Street.
Born at Orange, Virginia in 1836, the daughter of the late John and Mary Breed, Mrs. Poindexter spent her early girlhood in Virginia, where she was united in marriage with Louis Johnson and later with Nicholas Poindexter, both of whom she survived.
At one time Mrs. Poindexter was the matron of the Manassas school, Manassas, Virginia. The deceased had been for many years a member of the Lincoln Memorial Congregational church, Washington, D. C.
To mourn her loss she leaves one sister, Mrs. Margaret Smith of this city, two sons, Charles Johnson, M. D., of Aiken, S. C., William P. Poindexter, of Washington, D. C., and Mrs. Robert Holmes of this city. Twenty-one grandchildren and six great-grandchildren also survive."

2. "POINDEXTER--In this city, April 12, Mary Jane Breed (sic), widow of William Poindexter. Funeral service at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Robert Holmes, 23 John Street, Friday afternoon, April 14, 1916, at 2:30 o'clock."

3. "Mrs. Nicholas Poindexter.
The funeral of Mary Jane Breed, widow if Nicholas Poindexter, was held Friday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock, from the home of her daughter, Mrs. Robert Holmes of John street. Rev. Edward S. Worcester, pastor of the Broadway Congregational church, officiated. The bearers were Robert Holmes, Charles Homes, Avery Holmes and Albert Butler. Burial was in Yantic cemetery. Undertakers Henry Allen and Son had charge of the funeral arrangements."

More About MARY JANE REED:
Medical Information: May have suffered from Altzheimer's Disease in later years.

Marriage Notes for LOUIS JOHNSON and MARY REED:
Mary was wed at 13. Louis drank excessively. Cecelia Ladeveze said he drank himself to death. She became a widow in 1865 at 23, when Margaret Edmonia was an infant.

Children of LOUIS JOHNSON and MARY REED are:

2.	i.	ANNIE ELIZABETH² JOHNSON, b. 1857, Washington, DC ?.
3.	ii.	DR. CHARLES CATLETT JOHNSON, b. December 28, 1860, Orange County, Virginia; d. June 01, 1928, Aiken, South Carolina.
4.	iii.	MARGARET EDMONIA JOHNSON, b. July 22, 1865; d. August 04, 1926.

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