House and barn of John and Hannah Johnson according to trial testimony, AI illustration.htm
Dublin Core
Title
House and barn of John and Hannah Johnson according to trial testimony, AI illustration.htm
Description
Testimony describes the Johnson place as a modest working homestead on twelve acres in the northwest corner of Great Lot 10. The land was originally wet, rough, and partly cut over: witnesses described water, briars, bushes, logs, stumps, swamp, swales, and about two acres of remaining woodland. Johnson cleared and drained the land, fenced it, cultivated it, and used part of the remaining woods for firewood.
John Johnson said he moved onto the twelve acres on March 13, 1848, and built the house and barn at his own expense soon afterward. John Chadwick testified that Johnson put up the house and barn in spring 1848, with Hall and Murray doing the work. Chadwick described the house as a frame structure with braces and posts.
Later descriptions give a rough picture of the buildings. Benjamin Taylor called the house a good hewn-timber frame, worth about $75 to $100, with boarded walls, battered doors, two or three windows, one partition, no lath or plaster, stairs or a loft space, and a shingled roof. He estimated the barn, also hewn timber, at about $200, describing it as boarded, shingled, and in good order, though one door was poor. Payne gave a smaller and lower estimate: a plank/frame house about 15 by 20 feet, worth perhaps $50, with a barn of similar construction, both dilapidated.
The improvements included fences around the twelve acres, with Johnson building or maintaining the east, west, north, and south lines; a smaller fenced yard or acre around the house; ditching to drain water near the house and across the land; fruit trees and bushes; and cultivated fields. Witnesses mentioned wheat, corn, oats, buckwheat, beans, potatoes, garden crops, apples, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, currants, hay, pasture, and firewood. Franklin Warren specifically listed about twenty apple trees, one pear tree, four cherry trees, one or two plum trees, two peach trees, and about nineteen currant bushes.
As for equipment and animals, the original land bargain allowed Johnson to pay partly through “work, labor and services of himself and teams.” Chadwick saw Johnson cultivating year after year and later saw his horse in the pasture and woods. Other testimony refers to an old mare, a horse used for drawing wood, and shared arrangements where others plowed or harrowed while Johnson sowed, harvested, supplied seed, or took crop shares.
In period terms, this sounds like a small, rough, practical farmstead rather than a finished village house: a framed or plank rural dwelling, unfinished inside, with a service barn more valuable than the house itself. Compared with a log shanty or temporary clearing cabin, the Johnson house was more substantial; compared with a prosperous finished farmhouse, it was plain, worn, and utilitarian. The barn, fences, orchard, drainage, and crops are what make the place read as a working homestead, not merely a cabin in the woods.
- AI analysis
John Johnson said he moved onto the twelve acres on March 13, 1848, and built the house and barn at his own expense soon afterward. John Chadwick testified that Johnson put up the house and barn in spring 1848, with Hall and Murray doing the work. Chadwick described the house as a frame structure with braces and posts.
Later descriptions give a rough picture of the buildings. Benjamin Taylor called the house a good hewn-timber frame, worth about $75 to $100, with boarded walls, battered doors, two or three windows, one partition, no lath or plaster, stairs or a loft space, and a shingled roof. He estimated the barn, also hewn timber, at about $200, describing it as boarded, shingled, and in good order, though one door was poor. Payne gave a smaller and lower estimate: a plank/frame house about 15 by 20 feet, worth perhaps $50, with a barn of similar construction, both dilapidated.
The improvements included fences around the twelve acres, with Johnson building or maintaining the east, west, north, and south lines; a smaller fenced yard or acre around the house; ditching to drain water near the house and across the land; fruit trees and bushes; and cultivated fields. Witnesses mentioned wheat, corn, oats, buckwheat, beans, potatoes, garden crops, apples, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, currants, hay, pasture, and firewood. Franklin Warren specifically listed about twenty apple trees, one pear tree, four cherry trees, one or two plum trees, two peach trees, and about nineteen currant bushes.
As for equipment and animals, the original land bargain allowed Johnson to pay partly through “work, labor and services of himself and teams.” Chadwick saw Johnson cultivating year after year and later saw his horse in the pasture and woods. Other testimony refers to an old mare, a horse used for drawing wood, and shared arrangements where others plowed or harrowed while Johnson sowed, harvested, supplied seed, or took crop shares.
In period terms, this sounds like a small, rough, practical farmstead rather than a finished village house: a framed or plank rural dwelling, unfinished inside, with a service barn more valuable than the house itself. Compared with a log shanty or temporary clearing cabin, the Johnson house was more substantial; compared with a prosperous finished farmhouse, it was plain, worn, and utilitarian. The barn, fences, orchard, drainage, and crops are what make the place read as a working homestead, not merely a cabin in the woods.
- AI analysis
Date
1848-05
Collection
Citation
“House and barn of John and Hannah Johnson according to trial testimony, AI illustration.htm,” North Tonawanda History, accessed October 14, 2026, https://nthistory.com/items/show/5040.