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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 132/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida
of 1870. Ever since he became the county’s leading Republican in
1868, Johnson’s position had been precarious. On the evening of
February 24, 1871, an armed group surrounded his house and
fired some eight shots into it. In April 1871, Johnson received a
letter allegedly sent by the Klan which he later published. The
letter warned Johnson that:
... all the Ku Klux laws, all the courts, all the soldiers, all
the devils in hell cannot stop the resolves of the brother­
hoods. The destroyers of our rights—that is, unprincipled
leaders such as you, if they persist, will fall one by one; it is
sworn to by brave men who are obliged to act secretly
from the power of circumstance. It is left to you whether
you choose death or peace. . . . There is not a glimmer of
hope left for you if you persist in your choice of pretending
to be elected.38
The Conservative-Democrat newspaper, the Tallahassee
Weekly Floridian rejected the validity of the letter. Editor Charles
E. Dyke stated: “The letter has all the earmarks of fraud. Persons
who propose assassination or violence are not fools enough to
write such stuff as Johnson parades before the public.”39
Whether real or fabricated, subsequent threats frightened
Johnson sufficiently so that he did not sleep in his house for several
years. He was reelected in 1872 and 1874, and both elections in­
volved alleged frauds at the Colored Academy precinct in Lake
City. On the evening of July 21, 1875, Johnson was murdered as he
returned home from his business. It was dark as he neared his
house, and when he heard his name called out, he turned and re­
ceived a shotgun blast in his face. He died instantly.40
Johnson’s assassination was the last politically-related murder
in Columbia County during the Reconstruction era, although
events surrounding the election of 1876 show that the period of

38 House Report 22, p. 261.
38Tallahassee Floridian, November 7, 1871.
40U.S. Congress, Senate Reports, 44th Cong., 2 Sess., No. 611, pt. 2, Ser. 1733,
pp. 25-26; Tallahassee Floridian, July 27, 1875.
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