December 3, 2011

Kentucky native Benjamin Johnson moved to Arkansas in 1821 after he was appointed as one of the three judges of the Superior Court of the Arkansas Territory, an office he held for approximately fifteen years. In 1836, he was appointed the state’s first federal district judge. Approximately three years before this appointment, the newly formed Johnson County was named in his honor. Johnson died in the summer of 1849 and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock (Pulaski County).