Johnson, Thomas (1732–1819)
JOHNSON, THOMAS (1732–1819)
Thomas Johnson served in Maryland's colonial House of Delegates and was a member of committees to instruct delegates to the stamp act congress and to draft a protest against the townshend acts. He sat in the Continental Congress but was absent when the declaration of independence was signed. He was a member of the convention that drafted Maryland's revolutionary constitution (1776) and served as its first governor (1777–1779). Johnson served in Congress from 1781 to 1787 and was a judge of the special federal court to settle a boundary dispute between New York and Massachusetts. He supported ratification of the constitution in the state convention of 1788.
His longtime friend, President george washington, offered Johnson a district judgeship in 1789, but Johnson accepted instead the chief judgeship of the Maryland General Court. When john rutledge resigned in 1791, Washington appointed Johnson to the Supreme Court.
Serving only fourteen months on the Court, Johnson took part in no major decision. He sat for a single term (during which the jay court heard only four cases) and wrote a single short opinion. In 1793, plagued by illness and fatigued by circuit duty, he resigned and was replaced by william paterson.
Dennis J. Mahoney
(1986)