Peter Johnson, 1866

       ©  Kathy Duncan, 2025

While tracking Elizabeth Jane (Johnson) Selvy, I took another stab at finding her brother, the elusive Peter Johnson. The only record of him has been the 1850 Pike County, Illinois census, when he was 16 years old and living at home with his parents, Samuel and Esther A. (Bryant) Johnson. 

Since he was not with the Johnsons or around them in 1860, it seemed likely that he died young or moved to another location. However, the U.S. census won't give up his location.

In a newspaper database, I tried to search for him one more time. I entered "Peter Johnson" and "Pike County, Illinois" in hopes that I would find an obituary that stated where he had come from. I have started entering my terms in the keyword search instead of the last name and first name fields because it helps with narrowing my search. I did not designate a state or dates for my search since I wanted to catch Peter Johnson living anywhere in the U.S. and anytime after 1850.  However, I sorted my results by the oldest publication. I was prepared to follow that search up with variations in abbreviating the words Illinois and county. However, I got lucky with my first set of search results.  

I found a newspaper clipping that related the death of Peter Johnson in Sutter County, California, on 30 June 1866. 

This Peter Johnson was the right age to be the Peter Johnson I was seeking, and he was certainly from the right location. All the other Peter Johnsons with Pike County, Illinois, connections that I have ever tracked down were either too old, too young, or Swedish immigrants. 

Besides telling me that this Peter Johnson was 31 years old and from Pike County, Illinois, this clipping tells me who he was working for, the events leading up to his death, where he died, and that he had served Co. G, 2nd Cavalry, California volunteers.

The next step was to locate Peter Johnson's service records on Fold3.

He is records confirmed his age and added that he was born in Pike County, Illinois. 

While in Sacramento, California, he had enlisted near the end of the war for a period of three years.

He was mustered out on 1 February 1866, just months before he was injured on A. L. Chandler's farm.

A.L. Chandler was a prominent farmer living west of Nicolaus, California, in Sutter County. His "ranch" and residence were featured in the 1879 History of Sutter County, California. This illustration of the ranch includes A. L. Chandler's farm equipment and thresher in use:

Chandler's house was substantial:

Peter Johnson had only worked for Chandler for a short time before his death. He probably was not well known by Chandler or the other farm hands. The fact that Chandler searched Peter's papers suggests that he was looking for information on family members to contact. I wonder if Peter's papers contained that information and if word made it back to Pike County that he had died, or was Peter Johnson another young man who went west and was never heard from again?

Peter Johnson's death in 1866 would explain why I've found no newspaper clippings about him or his children visiting the Brown family in Dewitt County, Illinois or the Lacy family in Kansas. This is also one less avenue for getting additional information about the Johnson and Bryant ancestors.