My mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so I said I wanted to read poetry with her.

Johnson decided to travel to England in November 1775 accompanied by the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant to appeal his case directly with the British lords. In 1773 their first home was destroyed by a lightning strike.

The following year Johnson relocated with Loyalist supporters to Canada as tensions rose in New York before the American Revolutionary War. He was appointed as his successor in 1774.