Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson (May 17, 1724November 8, 1786) was a Congregationalist minister and pamphleteer from Lyme, Connecticut who wrote one of the first pamphlets condemning the Stamp Act. Life Johnson was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1724 to Sarah, née Ogden, and Nathaniel Johnson. Through his mother, he was the great-grandson of John Ogden, who founded Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Johnson married Elizabeth Diodati, the daughter of a New Haven merchant, on July 26, 1744. Johnson graduated from Yale College in 1743 (he would later serve as a member of the Yale Corporation) and became minister of Lyme's First Congregational Church in 1746, succeeding Jonathan Parsons. He subscribed to New Divinity theology. Johnson was attached as chaplain to a regiment in the Revolutionary War. He left for battle in May 1775, likely as part of the 6th Connecticut Regiment commanded by Samuel Holden Parsons, and was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill.