"Prominent Men of West Virginia" George Wesley Atkinson, Alvaro Franklin Gibbens Published by W. L. Callin, 1890 - West Virginia OKEY JOHNSON. OKEY JOHNSON, son of William and Elizabeth Johnson, was born in Tyler county, Virginia, March 24, 1834, one of a family of fifteen, who grew to manhood and womanhood. He worked on the farm in summer and went to school in winter, until he grew to manhood; graduated at Marietta High School in 1856; studied law in Harvard University and graduated with the degree of LL. B. in 1858; located at Parkersburg, Virginia, to practice law, in 1862; was a Democrat, and opposed proscrip- tion of returned Confederates. He was a candidate for the Legislature from Wood county. In 1864 he was an elector on the McClellan ticket; a candidate for the State Senate in 1870 from the Fifth District, which had at the previous election given a Republican majority of six hundred and fifty; made such a canvass that he carried every county in his district, and was elected by seven hundred and fifty majority; was in his seat in the Senate for two weeks and succeeded in having there passed the “Flick amendment” for the relief of the disfranchised, by a unanimous vote; was sick all the time while in his seat; went home and came near dying with typhoid pneumonia; resigned his seat that the bill calling the Constitutional Convention might pass; was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention from the Fifth Senatorial District by over two thousand majority, and took a prominent part in framing the present State Constitution; was elector-at-large on the Democratic National ticket in 1872; was earnestly engaged as a worker in behalf of the Democratic party from 1864 to 1876. He has been a member of the Baptist Church for forty years; presided as Moderator of the Parkersburg Baptist Association continuously for ten years, embracing the period of the war; has been President of the Baptist State Convention ; received the honorary degree of A.M. from Marietta College in 1871. In 1863 he married the eldest daughter of Hon. James M. Stephen- son, of Parkersburg, and has five children, most of whom are now grown. In 1876 he was nominated, without electioneering, for the high position on the Democratic ticket for Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and was elected by about seventeen thousand majority. For the term of twelve years he devoted all his en- ergies to the duties of his exalted office. His opinions will be found in the West Virginia reports from the Tenth to the Thir- ty-first Volume, inclusive. He helped in no small degree to build up a system of jurisprudence in West Virginia, and has seen the West Virginia Supreme Court brought into prominence in the Text books, and by the Courts of last resort in our sister States. He set his face against fraud, and wrote the opinions on the two leading cases on that subject, Lockhart and Ireland vs. Beckley and Hunter vs. Hunter, in the Tenth West Virginia. He wrote the opinions in the celebrated war-trespass cases, in the Nineteenth West Virginia, Peerce vs. Fitzmiller and White vs. Crum and others, the principles decided in which were recently approved and affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, in Freeland vs. Williams, 130 U. S. He wrote the opinion in Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company vs. the Auditor, nineteenth West Virginia, which compelled that great Company to pay taxes to the State, holding unconstitutional a statute which exempted it, which decree was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, 114 U. S., 176. He wrote the opinion of the Court in State vs. Frew & Hart, Twenty-fourth West Virginia, settling the power of the Courts in cases of contempts, where libel has been published by a newspaper on the Court, having an important case before it at the time to which the libel referred. The newspapers criticized the opinion severely, but its effect was salutary. He wrote the greater number of the opinions in criminal cases while on the Bench. He wrote the opinion on the Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Kentucky R. R. Co. vs. Benwood Iron Works, Thirty-first West Virginia, which clearly defines what is a “public use,” for which private property may be condemned, and holding that a railroad switch to a steel mill is not for “public use.” His opinions took the widest range on the most important questions, and reflect credit on the Court of which he was a member, and by the choice of his brethren its President for seven and one-half years. Judge Johnson retired from the Bench January 1, 1887, and located at the Capital of the State, where he is now engaged in the practice of the law. The benefit of his long and severe training on the Bench is showing itself in the practice he is now receiving. Judge Johnson is known all over the State as a man of high character; is moral, upright, studious, energetic. He is a good lawyer, and is universally esteemed by all who are acquainted with him. Submitted by Linda Fluharty.