GENERAL JEREMLin JOHNSON. 



"We have placed at the commencement of this volume, a portrait 

 of the late venerable chairman of our Board of Agriculture. He 

 was well known to most of our members, and very few among 

 those who were in the habit of meeting him at the Institute will 

 be likely soon to lose a recollection of his cheerful countenance, 

 the urbanity of his mannei-s, or the earnestness with wiiich he 

 engaged in the subjects under consideratien. 



General Johnson descended from a purely Dutch ancestry, his 

 immediate progenitors being among the earliest settlers of Long 

 Island. Jeremias Remsen, son of Rem Jansen, to whom the Gen- 

 eral was nearly related, was born Sept. 10, 1675, and purchased 

 the farm at the Wallabout, L. I,, in 1694. On this farm General 

 Johnson was born. It continued in the Remsen family for many 

 years. Jeremiah Remsen, who married Jane, daughter of Martin 

 R. Schenck, died without issue, Sept. 4, 1777, at the age of 63, 

 and left the family estate to Barnet Johnson, the father of Jere- 

 miah, who is the subject of this notice. Gen. Johnson had always 

 lived on the same farm, and after an active, energetic and event- 

 ful life of 87 years duration, died on the place where he was born, 

 and on the land which was owned and cultivated by his ancestors 

 and himself, through the continuance of several generations. The 

 house in which he died was built by himself in 1800. 



General Johnson was familiar with many of the most thrilling 

 events of our revolutionary war. Living on the shore of Walla- 

 bout bay, in view of the head quarters of the British forces, he 

 daily saw the memorable prison ships as they lay moored b«;fore 

 him, and also saw many of the bodies of the 14,000 martyrs, 

 brought from these ships and slightly buried upon the beach- 



[Assembly No. 133.] 6 



