Eden Abbot Johnson, one of the leading business men of L’Orignal, is a native of J the county of Prescott, dating his birth at West Hawkesbury, August 18, 1838. His father, Eden Abbot Johnson, senior, was the first white child born in that county, and a local Wesleyan preacher, and active christian worker and most estimable man, dying at West Hawkesbury in 1839. His grandfather was a United Empire Loyalist from Massachusetts. His mother, before her marriage, was Hannah Bill, belonging to a prominent American family, though born herself at Compton, Lower Canada, receiving her French education, at St. Eustache convent.
Our subject was educated in the arts at common and grammar schools, at Vankleek Hill, L’Orignal and Brockville, and in military drill at Toronto, under the 47th regiment, and received a first class certificate there and also at Montreal.
In 1866, at the time of the first Fenian raid, he went to the front in command of a service company from the county of Prescott, and with the aid of the Mayor of Cornwall, arrested Murphy and nine of his associates, including Col. Wheeler, at that place. He also commanded the guard of honor at the opening of the first Dominion Parliament (1867) at the time the reply was made to the address in the House of Commons.
Since 1862, Mr. Johnson has been a resident of L’Orignal, where he is engaged largely in real estate and conveyancing, also acting as agent for a loan company, and farming. He has 140 acres of cleared land, one mile from the village, and most of it in a high state of cultivation. He is a first class business dispatcher, always on the alert one of the live men of .L’Orignal.
He is clerk of the Division Court, and of the corporation of L’Orignal; was official assignee of the united counties of Prescott and Russell, under the Insolvent Act, until it was repealed on the first of April, 1880; has long been very active in educational matters, being one of the leaders, years ago, in getting up the high school at his adopted home, serving for some time, as chairman of the high school board. He is still a school trustee.
Mr. Johnson is secretary of the Conservative Association of Prescott, and takes a lively interest and very active part in politics. In 1879, he was a candidate for the local Legislature, but there were four candidates in the field, and in the quadrangular fight, he was one of the three defeated ones. He is quite a prominent man in his party in the county.
He is a Royal Arch Mason, a member, and has been Master, of St. John’s lodge, the only one, we understand, in the Province, working under an Irish charter.
On the 9th of November, 1869, Mr. Johnson chose for his life companion, Miss Laura Jane Workman, of Montreal, daughter of Samuel Workman, formerly a hardware merchant in Toronto, and niece of ex-mayor Workman, of Montreal. She is the mother of four children, and has lost one of them.