Johnson, Sir William, 1st Baronet

Johnson, Sir William, 1st Baronet

(born 1715, Smithtown, County Meath, Ire.—died July 11, 1774, near Johnstown, N.Y.) British colonial official. In 1737 he emigrated from Ireland and settled in New York's Mohawk Valley. He purchased his first tract of land two years later, thus beginning the acquisitions that eventually made him one of the largest landholders and wealthiest settlers in British America. He fostered friendly relations with the Indians; his ties with them were further cemented when, following the death of his first wife, he married successively two Mohawk women. In 1746 he was appointed colonel of the Iroquois Confederacy. In the French and Indian War he defeated French forces at Lake George, N.Y. (1755), and captured Fort Niagara (1759). He was appointed superintendent of the Six Iroquois Nations (1756–74), helped subdue the Indian uprising called Pontiac's War (1763–64), and negotiated the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768).