Elisha G. Johnson
American physician and politician
Elisha Graham Johnson (January 11, 1839 – July 21, 1875) was a physician and a member of the Florida Senate whose murder had significant political repercussions.
Biography
Johnson was one of thirteen children of Henry Johnson and Phoebe Hall. He served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War with the 69th North Carolina Infantry and rose to the rank of Major. He moved to Florida after the war. He was a physician and a Deputy Collector for the Office of Internal Revenue. He was first elected to the Florida Senate in 1870 following the invalidation of an apparent win by his opponent, Charles Ross, due to election irregularities and a campaign of intimidation of black voters by supporters of Ross. Johnson was allied with the Republican (liberal) faction, at that point tied with conservative Democrats 12–12. The tie was broken by the July 21, 1875 murder of Johnson while searching for a still approximately 10 miles from Fernandina, Florida. Another source says that Johnson had "just closed his general store in Lake City and was walking home when an assassin killed him. That broke a 12-12 stalemate in the state Senate between the Republicans and the Conservatives." Another source says he was killed "at his turpentine facility near his home in Lake City, Florida."
A suspect was arrested and charged with murder approximately two months later.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q54871546. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1839, 1875 and 1870.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elisha G. Johnson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.