Joseph Ellis Johnson (19 December 1785-27 February 1877) was a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-VA 18) from 4 March 1823 to 3 March 1827 (succeeding Marc Alexander and preceding Isaac Leffler) and from 21 January to 3 March 1833 (succeeding Philip Doddridge and preceding John H. Fulton), from VA-20 from 4 March 1835 to 3 March 1841 (succeeding John J. Allen and preceding Samuel Lewis Hays), and from VA-14 from 4 March 1845 to 3 March 1847 (succeeding George W. Summers and preceding Robert A. Thompson), as well as Governor of Virginia from 16 January 1852 to 1 January 1856 (succeeding John B. Floyd and preceding Henry A. Wise).
Biography[]
Joseph Ellis Johnson was born in Orange County, New York in 1785, and he was raised in Belvidere, New Jersey; Winchester, Virginia; and Harrison County, (West) Virginia. He was a farmer before serving in the House of Delegates from 1815 to 1816 and from 1818 to 1822, and he went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1823 to 1827, in 1833, from 1835 to 1841, and from 1845 to 1847 as a Jacksonian Democrat. He also served as Governor from 1852 to 1856, and he supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War and moved from Bridgeport to Staunton after the Union occupied his hometown. After the war, he returned to Bridgeport, now in West Virginia, where he died in 1877.