My Genealogy Hound

William W. Johnson, liveryman, of Kahoka, is a native of Randolph County, Ind., born in 1825. He passed his early life on the river, serving in different capacities. He had very meager educational advantages, and started with very little means to assist him in the struggle through life, consequently all his possessions were made by hard labor. May 14, 1846, he married Miss Mary McCall, of Hancock County, Ill. She was born in Scotland, and was reared in Canada by her parents, Daniel and Margaret McCall. To her marriage eleven children were born, ten of whom are yet living. In March, 1856, our subject came to Clark County, Mo., and purchased a farm in what is now the eastern portion of Kahoka. In the latter part of the same year he purchased eighty acres more, which, taken with what he previously had purchased, amounted to two-thirds of the present town of Kahoka. He laid out the town on his land, and donated the square, where the courthouse now stands, to the county, for the purpose for which it is now used. He dug the cellar for the courthouse, and hauled the rock to construct the same. In 1882 he engaged in the livery business at Kahoka, and has been very successful. Our subject is a Democrat, and a member of the Masonic fraternity. His parents are Mahlon and Mary (Walker) Johnson. The father died in Illinois in 1847, and the mother resides with her daughter in Kahoka, Mo. Our subject’s wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.