Samuel William Johnson

Samuel William Johnson (July 3, 1830 – July 21, 1909) was an American agricultural chemist. He promoted the movement to bring the sciences to the aid of American farmers through agricultural experiment stations and education in agricultural science.

Johnson, working in the 19th century, covered various aspects of farming that today would be called both organic and nonorganic. His work included exposing frauds in artificial manures (some of which would today be called chemical fertilizers).

Biography

Johnson was born in Kingsboro, New York, the son of Abner Adolphus Johnson and Annah Wells Gilbert.^[1] Johnson's first teacher was his father; later he studied with David Mayhew in a school at Lowville, New York. Early on he obtained a textbook on chemistry by Fresenius, in which he learned methods of analytical chemistry.

Gaining admission to Yale University, Johnson took lessons from John Pitkin Norton, Benjamin Silliman, Benjamin Silliman, Jr. and James Dwight Dana among others. Upon graduation he went to Leipzig, studying with Otto Linne Erdmann. The next year he went to Munich and Liebig's lab. He studied physiological chemistry with Max Joseph von Pettenkofer and Wolfgang Franz von Kobell. Returning through England, he visited the lab of Edward Frankland and the experimental farms of John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert.

In 1855 Johnson had his translation of Liebig's The Relations of Chemistry to Agriculture and the Experiments of Mr. J. B. Laws published by Luther Tucker, editor of The Country Gentleman.^[2]

In 1858, he became a chemist for the Connecticut Agricultural Society, in which capacity he issued an important series of papers on commercial fertilizers and allied subjects. In 1866, he became a member of the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture. Also in 1866, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Johnson’s skill with analytical chemistry brought him the position of First Assistant at the Yale Analytical Lab in 1874. A year later he was made professor of analytical chemistry. The following year he was also named professor of Agricultural Chemistry. He regularly attended meetings of agricultural societies and farmers' clubs.

He was director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station from 1877 to 1899. In 1878 Johnson was president of the American Chemical Society.

Johnson retired in 1896.

References

Notes

Bibliography

Works

• Johnson, Samuel William (1859), Essays on peat, muck, and commercial manures, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 31010684.
• Johnson, Samuel William (1866), Peat and its uses: as fertilizer and fuel, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, ISBN 9780608416755, LCCN 06018169.
• Johnson, Samuel William (1868), How crops grow: a treatise on the chemical composition, structure, and life of the plant, for all students of agriculture, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, ISBN 9781425542344, LCCN 12010899.
• Johnson, Samuel William (1870), How crops feed: a treatise on the atmosphere and soil as related to the nutrition of agricultural plants, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 12012383.
• Johnson, Samuel William (1871), Chemical notation and nomenclature, old and new, New York City: John Wiley & Sons, LCCN 04035960.
• Johnson, Samuel William (1913), Osborne, Elizabeth A. (ed.), From the letter-files of S. W. Johnson, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in Yale University, 1856-1896, Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 1877-1900; edited by his daughter, Elizabeth A. Osborne, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, LCCN 14000878.

He edited Fresenius' Quantitative Chemical Analysis (1864, 1875, 1883).

Other sources

• Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Johnson, Samuel William" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
• Johnson, Rossiter; Brown, John Howard, eds. (1906), The Biographical Dictionary of America, American Biographical Society.
• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Johnson, Samuel William" . Encyclopedia Americana.

External links

• Thomas Burr Osborne (1911) Samuel William Johnson 1830 — 1909 from National Academy of Sciences.
• Works by Samuel William Johnson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Samuel William Johnson at Internet Archive