Memorial Address—John Butler Johnson, 
683 
JOHN BUTLER JOHNSON. 
By the accidental death of Dean J. B. Johnson, on June 23rd, 
last, the University of Wisconsin, and the engineering and edu¬ 
cational world suffered a very great loss; a loss not only of a 
highly efficient and active worker, but to an unusual extent of 
a strong personality. 
John Butler Johnson was born of Quaker parentage on a 
farm' near Marlboro, Stark county, Ohio, on June 11, 1850. 
For a number of years his schooling was obtained at the ordi¬ 
nary country school, but when he was sixteen years of age the 
family moved to Kokomo, Indiana, where he was able to attend 
Howard College. Later, he went to the Holbrook Normal 
School for a short time. From 1868 to 1872 he taught school 
in Arkansas and Indiana, and in the latter year became secre¬ 
tary of the Indianapolis school board. He also- taught for a 
time in the Indianapolis high school. 
. In 1874 he entered the Civil Engineering course at the Uni¬ 
versity of Michigan, from’ which he graduated in 1878 at the 
age of twenty-eight. During his college course he spent his 
vacations in work along the line of his chosen profession, both 
for the sake of the experience and for 1 money to assist in pay¬ 
ing his expenses. In carrying out this summer work he was 
obliged nearly every year of his course to- enter school late and 
leave early; and yet he found time to do that which he so 
strongly advised all his students,—attend occasional lectures in 
other departments and to take part in the college activities. 
Doubtless his mature age and experience enabled him to profit 
much more by his college course than the average student, and 
the position! he has since won has been a great encouragement 
to any young man who, like himself, has begun his college edu¬ 
cation somewhat late in life. 
After graduating, Professor Johnson was engaged until 1881 
on the survey of the Great Lakes, and from 1881 to 1883 he 
was assistant engineer on the Mississippi Biver Commission, in 
which position he accomplished considerable work of impor¬ 
tance. During one of the greatest floods ever experienced on 
the lower Mississippi, he was commissioned to- measure the dis¬ 
charge through various crevasses, a somewhat dangerous and dif- 
