Harriet Branum Johnson OKelley

Harriet Branum Johnson OKelley

Erika Lusco

Quick Facts

Significance:

Oklahoma Homesteader

Place of Birth:

Weakley County, Tennessee

Date of Birth:

October 12, 1853

Place of Death:

Luther, Oklahoma

Date of Death:

April 3, 1932

Place of Burial:

Arcadia, Oklahoma

Cemetery Name:

Spigener Cemetery

On November 13, 1900, Harriet Branum Johnson gave notice that she intended to prove up her homestead at the Guthrie, Oklahoma Land Office where her husband George W. Johnson had applied in 1893.

More than seven years had passed during which the family made the necessary land improvements and became part of a tight-knit community of homesteaders. When George died unexpectedly on September 14, 1897, it was up to Harriet and her children to finish proving his claim number 12130 or lose the land and the improvements they had already made.

George Johnson and Harriet Branum were married in the spring of 1876 in Obion County, Tennessee. Likely born enslaved about 1854 in Virginia, George Johnson was also known as Manuel. Very little is known about his early life and how he came to live in Tennessee. Harriet Branum was born into enslavement on October 12, 1853 in Weakley County, Tennessee. According to family oral history, as told by her daughter Daisy Mae Johnson Armstrong, Harriet was the child of her mother’s enslaver as were her mother and grandmother before her. The Johnsons made their home in Woodland Mills Township near the Tennessee - Kentucky state line. By 1880, they had welcomed four children, Sara, Laura, Georgia, and Henry. George’s sister Jennie Bransford DeHoney lived nearby, one of at least fourteen children in the large, blended family of Robert Bransford.

Obion County, Tennessee held little financial opportunity for African Americans and, particularly in the northwest corner of the state, there existed a constant threat of violence. Though there is no evidence to date that the families were directly affected, skirmishes between Whites and Blacks and the burning of an all-Black community in the county in the years after the Civil War indicate an ominous racial tension. Faced with these circumstances and perhaps to take some control over their futures, two couples, George’s sister Jennie Bransford with her husband Willis DeHoney and Wesley Bransford with wife Jane Ligon, moved to Barry County, Missouri sometime between 1880 and 1884. Shortly afterward, George and Harriet Johnson joined them in Missouri where the two youngest of their children were born.

While they were the last of the three couples to arrive in Missouri, the Johnsons were the first of them to move farther west to claim a portion of unassigned lands in Oklahoma Territory in October 1893. By that time, the best of the land tracts for agriculture had been claimed. In fact, three other homesteaders had made entry on the same 162 acres of sandstone hills and had canceled or relinquished their claims between September 1889 and fall of 1893 when the Johnsons settled on it. According to family lore, at least three of the older children supported the family by working off the farm. Georgia is said to have done domestic work in a nearby town while Henry and Andrew worked on farms in the area. Their contributions would have been used for food and supplies to make the necessary land improvements. Without their support, it may have been impossible to sustain a farm on this particular land.

As his widow, Harriet Branham Johnson proved up George’s homestead claim on January 11, 1901. Neighbors and fellow Black homesteaders William Hardiman and Charles Morris provided their testimonies. The Johnsons had built a hen house and a corn crib, fenced in a pasture, and cultivated 40 acres and an orchard. They had also constructed an addition to the house left on the property by a previous homesteader. Harriet Johnson’s land patent number 4714 was issued on December 30, 1901.

Back in Barry County, Missouri, the Pierce City Lynching in August of 1901 resulted in the exodus of all its Black residents. According to one newspaper account, there were no Black citizens left in the county after Willis DeHoney, husband to Jennie Bransford, sold their farm a month after the bloody events and moved away. It is unclear whether they moved directly to Oklahoma, but in February 1905 they were living in Logan County, Oklahoma, not far from the Johnson family homestead. Also in Barry County, Missouri, Wesley Bransford died between 1897 and 1900 leaving his widow Jane to raise their six children who were still at home. By 1906, Jane Bransford’s household had also moved to Logan County, Oklahoma, where the three couples’ families were together again.

Several Johnson children married the sons and daughters of other homesteaders in the area, including the children of three of the four witnesses who had agreed to testify to their land improvements. A group of children of area homesteaders, including sons Andrew and Henry Johnson and their spouses, moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1910s. Daisy Mae Johnson married J.T. Armstrong who became a prosperous merchant in the railroad town of Luther, Oklahoma. And with a nod to the strength and bravery of their parents, aunts, and uncles, Edward, John, and Mollie Bransford, children of Wesley and Jane, became homesteaders in Alberta, Canada.

~ Contributed by Erika Lusco

Erika Lusco
Photo Credit: E. Lusco

About the contributor: Erika is related to both Harriet and George Johnson by marriage. She resides near Kansas City, Missouri where she teaches Spanish to young children. Interviews of family friend and Luther area, Oklahoma researcher Sharon McAllister were invaluable in the writing of this article. 

Patent Details - BLM GLO Records