Guy Johnson

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For the English cellist, see Guy Johnston.

This painting by Benjamin West is traditionally identified as a portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson, though a recent biography of Sir William Johnson claims that it actually depicts Sir William, Guy's uncle.

Guy Johnson (c.1740 – 5 March 1788) was an Irish-born military officer and diplomat for the Crown during the American Revolutionary War. He was the son of either John or Warren Johnson of Smithstown, Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath, the two younger brothers of Sir William Johnson.

In 1756, he sailed from Ireland and joined his uncle William in the Mohawk Valley of the Province of New York. In 1763, Guy Johnson married William's daughter Mary (Polly), and his uncle (now also father-in-law) gave them a square mile of land on the Mohawk River. In 1773, their first home there was destroyed by a lightning strike, but was then replaced by a large limestone house, which they called Guy Park. The house still stands in what is now Amsterdam, New York.

Guy Johnson became a deputy to Sir William in his uncle's position as British Superintendent of Indian Affairs and succeeded him when William died in 1774 on the eve of the war. Guy was also a colonel in the New York militia and a member of the New York assembly. When the American revolutionary Committee of Safety sought power in 1775, Johnson remained loyal to the Crown and worked to control the Tryon County courts, assisted by fellow loyalists Sir John Johnson (Sir William's son) and Colonel Daniel Claus (another son-in-law of Sir William). These three also commanded the three regiments of the Tryon County militia. However, American Patriots soon drove these men out of power, and they fled with other loyalist refugees to British-controlled Canada.

Johnson worked to secure the allegiance of the Iroquois at a council at Oswego, New York in July of 1775, traveled to England in 1775 with Joseph Brant, and then back to New York City in 1776 after the city had been retaken by the British, not returning to Canada until 1779, a prolonged absence for which he was sharply criticized. Those years were eventful ones on the New York frontier, and included the Wyoming Valley Massacre and Cherry Valley Massacre, which were carried out by his subordinates.

Back in Niagara in 1779, Johnson helped to provide for the Iroquois refugees from the Sullivan Expedition, and then helped to co-ordinate counter-raids. Sir John Johnson took over in 1783, and Guy Johnson returned to London, where he died five years later.