JOHN FRANCIS JOHNSON

 

             After living in San Mateo County for fifty-nine years and holding public office for over twenty-five years, John F. Johnson takes a place among San Mateo County’s leading citizens.  Few men, can boast of a longer residence and a better knowledge of the growth and development of the peninsula than Mr. Johnson.

             Mr. Johnson spent the first part of his life in Halfmoon Bay when that was the most important town in the county.  Later he came to Redwood City where after many years of service in public office he started the J. F. Johnson Abstract Company of which he is the owner and proprietor.

             Only few men have been stronger in public office in this county than Mr. Johnson.  Important among his public positions were eight years as deputy county clerk and recorder and ten years as county clerk and recorder and then later when the county developed sufficiently to separate these offices, eight years as county recorder.

             Mr. Johnson has been as prominent in the business and social life of the county as he has in its political life.  He was a charter member and the first past president of the Redwood Native Sons and has been Financial Secretary of that order for twenty-five years.  He also belongs to the Elks and Odd Fellows.  Mr. Johnson is one of the pillars of the Redwood City Chamber of Commerce and belongs to the San Mateo County Development Association.  He is a director of the San Mateo County Building and Loan Association and the Redwood City Realty Company.

             John Francis Johnson was born in Halfmoon Bay on September 2, 1856.  He resides in Redwood and has two grown children, John Leslie who is practicing law in Santa Cruz and Petra, who is teaching in the Redwood City Grammar school.  Both are graduates of Stanford.

 

Transcribed by Betty Wilson

 

Source: History of San Mateo County by Philip W. Alexander & Charles P. Hamm page 138. Press of Burlingame Publishing Co., Burlingame, CA. 1916.