Liver-Eating Johnson

John "Liver-Eating" Johnson, born John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston (July 1, 1824 – January 21, 1900), was a mountain man of the American Old West.

Liver-Eating Johnson
Bronze statue of Liver-Eating Johnson erected over his grave at Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming
Born
John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston

(1824-07-01)July 1, 1824
Little York, New Jersey
DiedJanuary 21, 1900(1900-01-21) (aged 75)
Santa Monica, California
Other namesGarrison
Occupationmountain man

Biography

Johnson is said to have been born with the last name Garrison, in the area of the Hickory Tavern between Pattenburg and Little York, near the border of what is today Alexandria and Union Townships in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.[1][2] During the Mexican–American War he served aboard a fighting ship, having enlisted under a false age. After striking an officer, he deserted, changed his name to John Johnston, and traveled west to try his hand at the gold diggings in Alder Gulch, Montana Territory. He also became a "woodhawk," supplying cord wood to steamboats. He was described as a large man, standing about six feet two inches (1.88 m) in stocking feet (but see below) and weighing in the area of 260 pounds (120 kg) with almost no body fat.

Rumors, legends, and campfire tales about Johnson abound. Perhaps chief among them is that in 1847, his wife, a member of the Flathead American Indian tribe, was killed by a young Crow brave and his fellow hunters, which prompted Johnson to embark on a vendetta against the tribe. According to historian Andrew Mehane Southerland, "He supposedly killed and scalped more than 300 Crow Indians and then devoured their livers" to avenge the death of his wife, and "As his reputation and collection of scalps grew, Johnson became an object of fear."[3]

Accounts say that he would cut out and eat the liver of each Crow killed.[4] This led to him being known as "Liver-Eating Johnson". Liver eating was an insult to the Crow because the Crow believed the liver to be vital if one was to go on to the afterlife. The story of how he got his name was written by a diarist at the time. There were already two other nicknamed Johnsons, "Pear-Loving Johnson" and "Long Toes Johnson".

One tale ascribed to Johnson[5][6] (while other sources ascribe it to Boone Helm[7]) is that while on a foray of over five hundred miles (800 km) in the dead of winter to sell whiskey to his Flathead kin he was ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors. The Blackfoot planned to sell him to the Crow, his mortal enemies, for a handsome price. He was stripped to the waist, tied with leather thongs and put in a teepee with only one very inexperienced guard. Johnson managed to break through the straps. He then knocked out his young guard with a kick, took his knife, scalped him, and then quickly cut off one of his legs. He made his escape into the woods, surviving by eating the Blackfoot's leg, until he reached the cabin of Del Gue, his trapping partner, a journey of about two hundred miles (320 km).

Eventually, Johnson made peace with the Crow,[6] who became "his brothers", and his personal vendetta against them finally ended after 25 years and scores of slain Crow warriors. The West, however, was still a very violent and territorial place, particularly during the Plains Indian Wars of the mid-19th century. Many more Indians of different tribes, especially but not limited to the Sioux and the Blackfoot, would know the wrath of "Dapiek Absaroka" Crow killer and his fellow mountain men.

The cabin inhabited by Johnson in the 1880s in Montana, moved into Red Lodge, Montana and on display at the tourism office

Johnson joined Company H, 2nd Colorado Cavalry, of the Union Army in St. Louis in 1864 as a private and was honorably discharged the following year. During the 1880s, he was appointed deputy sheriff in Coulson, Montana, and a town marshal in Red Lodge, Montana. He was listed as five foot, eleven and three-quarter inches (1.82 meters) tall according to government records.

In his time, he was a sailor, scout, soldier, gold seeker, hunter, trapper, whiskey peddler, guide, deputy, constable, and log cabin builder, taking advantage of any source of income-producing labor he could find.

His final residence was in a veterans’ home in Santa Monica, California. He was there for exactly one month before dying on January 21, 1900. His body was buried in a Los Angeles veterans' cemetery. However, after a six-month campaign led by 25 seventh-grade students and their teacher, Johnson's remains were relocated to Cody, Wyoming, in June 1974.[8]

In media
  • Crow Killer: the Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker (1958). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Library of Congress catalog card number: 58-8120 (a possible later version/printing (1969) ISBN 0-253-20312-0) The annotated biography, compiled from interviews with people who had actually known Johnson, with footnotes.
  • The Avenging Fury of the Plains: John Liver Eating Johnston by Dennis J McLelland (2008) Infinity Publishing ISBN 9780741445278
  • Mountain Man, a 1965 historical novel by Vardis Fisher is largely a fictionalized retelling of Johnson's experiences
  • Jeremiah Johnson, a 1972 film by Sydney Pollack starring Robert Redford[9]
  • John Johnston, Felton & Fowler's Famous Americans You Never Knew Existed, By Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler, Stein and Day, 1979 ISBN 978-0-8128-2511-4
  • Butchery of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone features Johnson as friends with the main character.

References
  1. Kuhl, John. "300 Fun Facts about Hunterdon County" (PDF). www.hunterdon300th.org. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  2. Koppehaver, Bob. "Jugtown to Jutland: Trails, Tracks, and Taverns". Skylands Visitor. Guest Services, Inc. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  3. "Liver-Eating Johnson", in The Mythical West: An Encyclopedia of Legend, Lore, and Popular Culture, Richard W. Slatta, ed. (ABC-CLIO, 2001) p. 211
  4. Thorp, Raymond W. (1958). Crow Killer. New York, New York: Signet. p. 29. ISBN 978-0253020833.
  5. "Badassoftheweek.com". Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  6. "Damninteresting.com". Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  7. Langford, Nathaniel Pitt (1912). Vigilante days and ways: the pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho. A. C. McClurg & Co. p. 74. boone helm.
  8. "Jeremiah Johnson's Body To Be Moved". Evening Independent. Associated Press. May 28, 1974. p. 12-A. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  9. "Crow Killer: the Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson". Retrieved 21 November 2014.

Further reading
  • Jon Axline, "In League with the Devil: Boone Helm and 'Liver-Eatin' Johnston'," in, Still Speaking Ill of the Dead: More Jerks in Montana History, edited by Jon Axline and Jodie Foley. Guilford, Connecticut and Helena, Montana: Two Dot,Globe Pequot Press, 2005.
  • Nathan E. Bender, "Perceptions of a Mountain Man: John "Jeremiah Liver-Eating" Johnston at Old Trail Town, Cody, Wyoming." The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal v.1 (2007): 93-106. Published by Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, Wyoming.
  • Nathan E. Bender, "The Abandoned Scout’s Revenge: Origins of the Crow Killer Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson," Annals of Wyoming v. 78 n. 4 (Autumn 2006): 2-17. Published by the Wyoming State Historical Society.
  • Nathan E. Bender, "A Hawken Rifle and Bowie Knife of John ‘Liver-Eating’ Johnson," Arms & Armour: Journal of the Royal Armouries, v. 3 n. 2 (October 2006): 159-170.
  • William T. Hamilton, Journal of a Mountaineer edited by Douglas W. Ellison, Western Edge Book Distributing: Medora, ND, 2010
  • Jim Annin, They Gazed on the Beartooths, v. 2 (1964): 225-227
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