Hezekiah Johnson was born in Maryland on this day in 1799. His Father was a Baptist preacher and the family moved to Ohio in 1816 to serve the Lord. Hezekiah professed faith in Christ when he was 26 and two years later he was ordained, moving to Iowa to plant a church. Then in 1845 he and his wife, and others, began the arduous journey to Oregon where free land was being given to settlers. The trip west was extremely difficult, plagued by sickness, mountain ranges, and trails which required pack-trains rather than wagons.
Oregon at the time was an almost unbroken wilderness. The preachers traveled to tiny communities by way of canoe and cayuse. Brother Johnson said that some of his happiest hours were spent meditating on the Word of God while sitting on the back of his pony, even in the driving rain. These journeys probably contributed to his violent migraine attacks and lung infections. His health began to limit his ministry ten years before he died in 1866 through complications of pneumonia.
On July 3, 1923, Warren G. Harding addressed a large crowd in Meacham, Oregon, during which he praised Johnson and the other missionaries who preached the gospel and kept the early history of the state decidedly Christian. Harding said, “Never in the history of the world has there been a finer example of civilization following Christianity… To the men and women of that early day whose first thought was to carry the gospel to the Indians… [and who] found that in serving God they were also serving their country and their fellow men – to them we pay today our tribute, to them we owe a debt of gratitude which we can never pay…”
