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 November 11, 2025 Kentucky Historical Society George W. Johnson Papers KYR-0003-092-0092 Folder 4

Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky George Washington Johnson (Provisional Governor of Kentucky) N001002 1811-05-27 1862-04-08 Categories: People

First governor of the provisional Confederate government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Georgetown, Kentucky, native. Son of William Johnson and Betsy Payne Johnson. Married to Ann Viley Johnson on August 20, 1833. Father of Eliza Woolfolk Johnson, Willa Viley Johnson, Madison Conyers Johnson, Martha Lydia Johnson, Junius Ward Johnson, Warren Viley Johnson, Henry Viley Johnson, and Euclid Lane Johnson. Educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Practiced law in Georgetown, Kentucky. Planter in Scott County, Kentucky, and Helena, Arkansas. Member of the Democratic Party. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from Scott County from 1838 to 1840. Owned fourteen enslaved persons in Scott County in 1850. Owned twenty-six enslaved persons in Scott County in 1860. Member of the Southern Rights Party. First provisional Confederate governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from November 20, 1861, to April 8, 1862. Served as an aide to Confederate General John C. Breckinridge. Served in the 4th Kentucky Infantry Regiment (C.S.A.) as a private from April 6, 1862 to April 8, 1862. Died on April 8, 1862 from wounds sustained at the Battle of Shiloh.

Relationships Social: William P. Adcock (Trimble County, Kentucky, farmer)

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Scott County, p. 612. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Scott County, District No. 1, pp. 228A-B. Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky: Confederate Kentucky Volunteers War 1861-65, vol. 1 (Frankfort: Legislature of Kentucky, 1915), 168-69. Lowell H. Harrison, "Johnson, George, W." in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, John E. Kleber, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 473. Lowell H. Harrison, “George W. Johnson (1861-1862)” in Lowell H. Harrison, Ed., Kentucky’s Governors (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 82-84. Jon L. Wakelyn, Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971, 255. Samuel Beal Thomas (Hardin County, KY, U.S. mail contractor, politician, and businessman) N00008144 1811-08-04 1874-09-03 Categories: People

Hardin County, Kentucky, U.S. mail contractor, businessman, and politician. Frederick County, Maryland, native. Son of Samuel Thomas. Married to Zorayda Young Thomas on September 19, 1833. Father of Howard Thomas, Wallace Thomas, Mary E. Thomas, Ellen M. Thomas, and Ann Thomas. Relocated to West Point, Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1828. Mail clerk in the office of Edward P. Johnson. Road agent in the office of Edward P. Johnson. Purchased Johnson's mail line in 1830. Part-owner of Hough, Carter, & Thomas Stage Coach Line in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Founding director and financier of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Promoter and first president of the Elizabethtown and Paducah Railroad. Owned thirty-nine enslaved persons in 1850. Owned fifty-six enslaved persons in 1860. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky for Hardin County from 1863 to 1865. Charter member of Barker Masonic Lodge at West Point, Kentucky.

Relationships Economic: Thomas & Churchill Legal: Thomas & Churchill

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, Upper or Northern District, p. 310A-310B. Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, District No. 1, p. 8. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, 3rd District, p. 90. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, 3rd District, p. 7-8. Ninth Manuscript Census of the United States (1870), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, Elizabethtown, p. 329A. The Biographical Encyclopædia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong & Company, 1878), 379-380. "Historic Resources of Hardin County. Samuel B. Thomas House," National Park Service, 26 Aug 1988, (https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=eeec3d57-a6b2-43fb-99be-ee264421b618) (accessed August 3, 2017). Daniel Elmo McClure, Jr., Two Centuries in Elizabethtown and Hardin County, Kentucky, 1776-1976, Elizabethtown, Hardin County historical Society, 1979, 288-89. Elizabethtown, Kentucky P00002906 Categories: Places

Seat of Hardin County, Kentucky.

37.7031, -85.8649 “Elizabethtown,” The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 290. "Elizabethtown, Kentucky," USGS: Earth Explorer, accessed January 3, 2020, https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/. Robert M. Rennick, Kentucky Place Names (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 90-91. Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky 1861-02-22 Correspondence English Version 1 of page "2": Changes to page transcript. Version 2 of page "1": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "2": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile. Version 1 of page "1": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "1": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile.
1

E. Town Feby 22. 1861 G W Johnson Esqr my dear Sir

I receive your letter this moment. Would have written you sooner had the promise of Eight Thousand Dollars. Very shortly. when pd. shall be pd on your debt-

I fear I shall not get any think from the south for some time, Should things take a change I will of the debt thair- rest ashured my dear Sir that every effort on my part shall be, to pay you the ballance at as early day as possable.

I will advise you when I pay the 8000$ on the note

Truly yourfriend

S B Thomas

2

S. B. Thomas July 22. 1861.

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S. B. Thomas 1861