Jesse H. Johnson

The plaque lists Johnson's posts; two of them fell in turbulent years. He became sheriff in May 1869 as a Reconstruction appointee, after Charles Schmidt refused the office, and by 1880 he was the Republican incumbent district clerk. His Matamoros consulship spanned the Mexican Revolution. In February 1913 he sheltered General Estrada, a 68-year-old officer who feared the rebel leader Major Ramos, in the consulate for sixteen days, calling it "an act of humanity." In March 1915 Secretary of State Bryan had him warn both factions fighting near Matamoros not to fire across the river into Brownsville.

What the plaque says

Jesse H. Johnson Jesse H. Johnson, born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, came to Texas in 1868 and settled here in Columbus, Colorado County. In May 1869 he was appointed sheriff of Colorado County, a position he held until the end of that year. Johnson became a part of Texas' legendary late 19th century cattle industry when in 1871 he led a cattle drive from Columbus to Abilene, Kansas, and delivered over 600 head of cattle. He was sworn in as Colorado County Justice of the Peace in 1872. In 1873 Johnson married Laura Glenn Harbert, a local landowner of some prominence and the daughter of an important county judge. He served as district clerk of Colorado County from 1876 to 1882 and became a director of the Columbus Meat and Ice Company in 1883. His last official position in Colorado County was that of tax collector from 1886 to 1894. Johnson joined the United States Foreign Service in 1899. He served as U.S. Consul in Coaticook, Quebec, Canada (1899-1901); Santos, Brazil (1901-1906); Swansea, Wales, U.K. (1907-1910); Matamoros, Mexico, (1910-1917); and at Regina, Saskatchewan, Western Canada, from 1917 to 1923. Johnson retired from the Foreign Service in 1923 and returned to Columbus. He died in Houston and his body was returned to Columbus by railroad for burial. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stafford Opera House — 0.4 mi
  A cattleman's bank and theater of 1886 on the Columbus square, in a river town Sam Houston burned in 1836 and a county marked by a long feud and a 1935 lynching.
• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 16 mi
  Ten thousand acres of native coastal prairie northeast of Eagle Lake, kept for a critically endangered grouse, many of whose birds are hatched in captivity and released here.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 18 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 20 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.

More markers nearby

• William Shelby Delaney — steps away
• William Demetris Lacey — 0.2 mi
• Ben Marshall Baker — 0.3 mi
• William B. DeWees — 0.3 mi