Ok so i was going down a wikipedia rabbit hole last night and stumbled across Thomas Johnson, first governor of Maryland. This guy was friends with George Washington, nominated Washington as commander of the Continental Army, AND was later involved in overseeing early construction on the new federal capital. Like actual founding father level stuff. How did i not know this?? I share this mans name and ive been walking around for 30 years thinking the most famous Thomas Johnson was maybe some random baseball player. Anyone else ever discovered a historical Thomas Johnson that blew their mind?
4 Comments
Oh yeah Thomas Johnson of Maryland is a big deal in colonial history circles. Hes kind of an unsung hero of the revolution tbh. He also served as a Supreme Court justice under Washington. The guy had a massive career but gets overshadowed by the bigger names. Theres a bridge named after him in Maryland if im remembering right.
a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE too?? ok this is way cooler than i thought. gonna use this at every party from now on. oh your names thomas johnson too? did you know we were basically founding fathers
Theres also a Thomas Johnson who was a pretty important figure in early Kentucky history. Not as famous as the Maryland one but still showed up in a bunch of land grant records and territorial government stuff. I found him while doing genealogy research trying to figure out if im related to any historical Thomas Johnsons. Spoiler: probably not but its fun to pretend
What's really interesting about Gov Thomas Johnson is that he was one of the commissioners who helped plan the city of Washington DC itself. He worked with Pierre L'Enfant on the layout. So when you look at a map of DC, a Thomas Johnson had a hand in that. Pretty incredible legacy for someone most Americans have never heard of.