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According to family lore handed down through the Johnson descendants, the parents of Abner & his siblings, were killed by Indians in KY when they were all young children. They escaped being massacred by hiding. Abner emigrated from Tennessee in the year 1827, settling on the west banks of the Mississippi River in the Arkansas Territory, where he served as Sheriff of the Chicot County area from 1830-1834. There he built a huge cotton plantation, named "Sunnyside". When he decided to move his family to Kentucky in 1840 so his children could be properly educated he sold Sunnyside to Elisha Worthington for $100,000.00 - a fortune for the time. He came to Texas with Vincent Anderson Wade, a friend, in 1846. Abner led a large group of families from there to what was then Henderson County TX, where they acquired land through Mercer's Colony. He received 640 acres of land, but being quite wealthy he enticed many families to go to Texas by financing their trip in exchange for 1/2 of their Mercer's Colony land. He settled first in Texas on his headright located on the Trinity River, south of the river port of Trinidad (near modern-day Rosser). His ambition was to navigate the Trinity from the Gulf of Mexico to Dallas. He succeeded at this somewhat during the years preceding the Civil War. After it became apparent to those who had received land on the Trinity just how perilous the river was from flooding, Johnson purchased land northeast of the old King's Fort in what became known as Johnson's Point, and in modern times is called the Abner Community. Abner Johnson Children of Abner & Nancy:
Marriage #2 Florina A Williams B: 1834 TN d: 9 Sep 1907 Clarendon, Donley Co TX Children of Abner & Florina:
Probate- Johnson, Abner Sr |