John and Hannah Johnson’s lot 19 subdivision 6 area, map, overlayed on modern streets (c.1848).jpg
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Before establishing their twelve-acre farm on Great Lot 10, John and Hannah Johnson lived in a log house on Lot 19, Subdivision 6, in Wheatfield, about a quarter-mile from their later home.
Neighbor Jacob Rumbold testified that John Johnson had claimed ownership of half of subdivision lot 6, approximately 23 acres. The land subsequently passed through the hands of Francis Winter and Charles Ernstein. Ernstein testified that his father-in-law, Winter, had acquired land from John Johnson and Jacob Hook, by deed or contract. Ernstein also said he moved into the Johnsons’ former house on May 14, 1850.
This identifies an earlier property interest, not merely another place where the Johnsons boarded or worked. However, the deed or contract itself has not yet been located, so the precise ownership arrangements between Johnson and Hook remain uncertain.
The likely source of the $96 payment to Locke
Hannah Johnson gave particularly revealing testimony about the sale of their earlier land. She remembered her husband receiving between $90 and $100 from a man recorded as “Weider” or “Weiders” for land he had sold. The money consisted largely of half-dollars, with American dollars, two-shilling pieces, and Mexican dollars. Hannah remembered counting ten Mexican dollars and keeping the money in a chest in their house.
Crucially, Hannah connected that money with the purchase of their new farm. She testified that $96 of the money was used for the land where they were then living.
Thomas J. Keith independently described the payment to Jesse F. Locke: John brought a bag of coins to Keith’s house, poured them onto the table, and asked Keith to count them. The amount was exactly $96. Keith prepared the receipt, dated October 15, 1849, which Locke signed. The agreed purchase price for the twelve acres was $12 per acre, or $144 altogether. The $96 therefore represented two-thirds of the purchase price.
The testimony strongly suggests that the Johnsons converted the proceeds of an earlier landholding into the down payment on their next farm. That is a more substantial history of property ownership and reinvestment than the later folklore suggests.
There are two unresolved details: Hannah names a buyer called Weider, whereas other witnesses identify Winter in the Lot 19 transaction; and the witnesses give conflicting dates for the Johnsons’ move. Neither discrepancy defeats the connection, but the surviving testimony does not completely establish the chain of transactions.
A second significance: John Johnson’s right to vote
Lot 19 may also explain another remarkable episode. In 1849, New York required Black men to own a freehold worth at least $250, net of debts, and to have been assessed and paid taxes on it, before they could vote. White men faced no equivalent property requirement.
At Rumbold’s reported sale price of $11–$12 an acre, a 23-acre holding would have been worth approximately $253–$276—just above that threshold. Solomon S. McMerrick recalled Johnson being challenged at the polls and Dr. Locke defending his qualifications, citing his land and livestock. Johnson also appears on an 1849 poll list.
We cannot yet establish that Lot 19 was the qualifying freehold. Nevertheless, it gives the earlier property two potentially important functions in Johnson’s life: it may have supported his exercise of the franchise, and its sale appears to have helped finance the next farm.
The next critical discovery would be the Johnson–Hook–Winter deed or land contract. That could establish the dates, ownership shares, consideration, and relationship between the two properties.