The Abner C. Johnson House is a single family home located at 625 East Street in,

Flint, Michigan Flint is the largest city and seat of Genesee County, Michigan, United States. Located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the region known as Mid Michigan. At the 2020 census, Flint had a population of 8 ...

. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

History

Abner C. Johnson was born in

Canajoharie, New York Canajoharie () is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Montgomery County, New York, Montgomery County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 3,730 in 2010. Canajoharie is located south of the Mohawk River o ...

in 1821. His family moved to

Bloomfield, Michigan Bloomfield Township, officially the Charter Township of Bloomfield, is a charter township of Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 41,070. As a northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Bloomfi ...

in 1828, and in 1836 relocated to Independence Township. In 1839, Abner moved out and purchased land in Mundy Township in Genesee County and began a successful farm. He also began studying law with George W. Wisner, and became one of the first attorneys in Genesee County. Johnson married Amanda Pearsall in 1845; the couple had three children. Soon, Johnson began a partnership with Wisner's brother Moses Wisner (later the

governor of Michigan The governor of Michigan is the head of state, head of government, and chief executive of the U.S. state of Michigan. The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a member of the Democratic Party, who was inaugurated on January 1, 2019, as the stat ...

), buying and selling timberland. The partners made a fortune during the area's timber boom. Johnson remained living on his farm, but by the 1860s he was spending more and more time in Flint pursuing both legal and business opportunities. Finally, in 1873, he constructed this house in Flint and moved his family there. Abner and Amanda Johnson stayed in the house until their deaths, after which their eldest son Charles inherited the property. The younger Johnson, born in 1847, was also a lawyer, and founded one of the largest law firms in Flint. He also lived in the house until his death. After that, family members of Charles Johnson's brothers, Ransom and James, stayed in the house until 1941. After that, the Johnson family retained ownership, but subdivided the house into apartments. In 1986, new owners purchase the house and converted it back to a single family home.

Description

The Abner C. Johnson House is a The two-story wood-framed Italianate house clad in brown brick. The original section is rectangular, measuring thirty-six feet by twenty-eight feet. It sits on a high basement made of multicolored dressed fieldstone. It has a hipped roof with wide eaves and paired corner brackets; a fourteen by eight foot clapboard-covered belvedere tops the building. The front facade of the house is three bays wide with a projecting center bay containing arches through which the decoratively carved double entry doors can be reached. On the second floor are a pair of rounded arch windows in a single arched opening. Pairs of rounded arch, one-over-one double hung windows are in each of the other bays on both floors. A single-story, hip roof, clapboard clad addition is at the rear of the building.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Abner C., House National Register of Historic Places in Genesee County, Michigan Italianate architecture in Michigan Residential buildings completed in 1873 Buildings and structures in Flint, Michigan Houses in Genesee County, Michigan