II.

Early Life

Johnson’s parents, Jacob and Mary McDonough Johnson, were very poor people. Johnson’s father worked as a porter and sexton in Raleigh, North Carolina. Andrew, the younger of their two sons, was born in a small log house in Raleigh on December 29, 1808.

When Johnson was still young, his father died. After a time, Johnson’s mother married again, but the family was still too poor to send him to school. At the age of ten, Johnson was apprenticed to a tailor so that he would learn a trade.

When Johnson was 17, he and his family traveled west through the mountain passes to Greeneville, in eastern Tennessee, where they settled. When the only tailor in Greeneville moved elsewhere, Johnson opened a tailor shop in a small frame building. The building still stands, along with a sign over the door that reads: “A. Johnson Tailor.”

In 1827, soon after opening his shop, Johnson married Eliza McCardle. She was intelligent and had had some schooling. With the help of his wife, Johnson improved his reading and learned writing and arithmetic.

By applying himself to his trade, Johnson earned a comfortable living for his family. In time he accumulated enough savings to buy a farm of about 40 hectares (100 acres). The Johnsons had two daughters, Martha and Mary, and three sons, Charles, Robert, and Andrew.

Johnson was a thickset man of average height. He was always neat, but he was not handsome. He had dark hair and eyes, a swarthy complexion, and a large-featured face. Johnson was an extremely serious man. However, what he lacked in humor and imagination he made up for by an unshakable faith in what he believed was right and just. He felt a kinship with working people and small farmers, and he disliked people of wealth or privilege.