Johnson Hall

Geographic position

43.0458° N, 74.3863° W

Sources

http://www.friendsofjohnsonhall.org/jhall.html. Swinehart, Kirk Davis. “Fort Johnson, Johnson Hall, and the Anglo-Mohawk Alliance.” American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook. Ed. Frances H. Kennedy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008. Web.

General note

Johnson Hall, which still stands today, refers to a Georgian house located in the present-day town of Johnstown, New York. It also denoted the small village surrounding the hall that became Johnstown. Its namesake is Sir William Johnson. Following the close of the French and Indian War in 1763, Johnson moved from what was known as Fort Johnson located in the present-day town of Amsterdam, New York to Johnson Hall, which became an important site in the history of Indian-white relations in the area. Johnson lived out the rest of his life there, dying in 1774 following a fraught conference regarding the mistreatment of the Shawnees by the British. Johnson wrote several letters to Wheelock from Johnson Hall with news of the Indians and council meetings with their representatives. David Fowler and Joseph Woolley, missionaries trained by Wheelock who went to work with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), both called on Johnson, spending time at and writing letters from Johnson Hall about their work.