13 Facts About Cave Johnson

Cave Johnson was an American politician who served the state of Tennessee as a Democratic congressman in the United States House of Representatives.

Cave Johnson was named for Rev Richard Cave, a Baptist minister in the Travelling Church with whom Mary's mother, named Mary Noel, had been acquainted in Kentucky.

Cave Johnson suspected but could never prove a relation to William Cave Johnson of Boone County, Kentucky.

Cave Johnson was studying at Cumberland College when the War of 1812 began, and organized a band of volunteers that Andrew Jackson declined.

Cave Johnson settled in Clarksville and served on its first board of aldermen.

Cave Johnson advocated legal protection of slavery under the federal constitution, believing that this would prevent "moderate" southerners from being overwhelmed by secessionist Fire-Eaters.

Cave Johnson mocked the idea by introducing a rider to fund research into animal magnetism.

Cave Johnson shifted the department from a collect on delivery system to a prepaid system by introducing the adhesive postage stamp in 1847.

Cave Johnson urged that telegraph lines not be left in unregulated private hands, concerned that they would ruin the Post Office while enriching those who held preferential information access, but his fellow Democrats were unreceptive.

Cave Johnson later served as a state circuit court judge and as president of the Third Bank of Tennessee from 1854 to 1860.

Cave Johnson joined in drafting an address that urged the state to remain in the Union while refusing to participate in coercive measures against the Confederacy.

Cave Johnson was elected to the state Senate in 1866, but allies of Republican Governor William G Brownlow refused to seat him.

Cave Johnson rejected him for another suitor, embarrassing him so deeply that he dared not pursue a woman again for more than twenty years.