The Johnson Family
On the afternoon of Monday, September 25, 1922, sixteen-year-old Ennis Johnson drove his buggy down a rural road lined with cotton. It was the end of the cotton harvest in Pilot Point, a small town in northeast Denton County and, fortunately for the people of Pilot Point, 1922 was a vast improvement over the boll weevil scourge of 1921. Many families were squeezing out the last drops of profit from the fluffy fields of white as Ennis Johnson rode by. At about 3 o’clock, Johnson stopped to speak with a girl who worked in one of the fields two miles south of town. He looked up from his brief conversation to see a white man watching the exchange from across the road in a nearby field. Concerned with the impact of a young Black man talking to a young white woman, Johnson rode away and down the road. He was promptly arrested by the Deputy Sheriff.[1]
Deputy Nick Akin was in Pilot Point on other business and was alerted to the felonious conduct by a growing crowd of concerned citizens. The lynching sentiment was growing in Pilot Point and so, when Akin arrested Ennis Johnson he took him twenty miles south to the Denton County jail to protect him from the growing mob. It is unclear why some individuals were left without protection from the mob while others were whisked away to a remote location for safe keeping. Perhaps it has to do with the officer’s perception of the strength of the case against the accused -- if conviction looks possible, protect the suspect; if conviction seems unlikely, turn the suspect over to the Klan.[2]
Regardless of the rationale behind Akin’s rescue, Ennis Johnson was in danger from the start. Johnson was accused of making an “improper proposal” to a twelve-year-old white girl in Pilot Point and the Klan wanted to kill him. A potential sentence of several years in jail would not quell their thirst for vengeance. In the minds of Denton County, the justice system could not provide the sentence the crime deserved. That night, a mob of masked Klansmen formed and burned down a tabernacle in a Black community -- Quakertown -- two blocks from the Denton County jail. Officers investigated the cause of the fire in the following days but found no evidence and suspended their investigation without charges.[3]
The following morning, Tuesday, September 26, 1922, sixteen-year-old Ennis Johnson was officially charged with the attempted criminal assault (rape) of a twelve-year-old white girl. Bail wasn’t initially granted, but the following morning Justice J.G. Boyd heard the examining trial of Ennis Johnson and set bail at $1500 ($23,258 in 2019 dollars), but he struggled to find anyone willing to guarantee his bond for release. As previously established, jail was not a place of safekeeping. Because Black men were denied the right of due process by the Ku Klux Klan and, because jails were left intentionally unguarded at night, incarceration was a trap and arrest was tantamount to kidnapping. If left outside of jail, Black men could run, hide, or otherwise defend themselves from the Klan, but inside the jail they were stripped of self-defense and left as sitting ducks waiting for abduction.
On Thursday, September 28, just as James Goode and his seventeen year old daughter Pauline were headed to visit Sanger (located about fifteen miles northwest of Denton) for a Kiwanis event, a large gathering of Klansmen was held near the town of Prosper for the initiation of the Denison and Sherman Klans in an “outdoor Konklave.” It was rumored to be the largest gathering of Klansmen in the North Texas area held a large initiation ceremony, complete with a lighted cross on a hill, a few miles east of Denton County limits near Prosper. Hundreds were in attendance from Denton and both Denton and Dallas Klansmen participated in the ceremony. Because Sheriff Goode and his family visited Sanger and were not present at their home on the first floor of the Denton County jail, it left only one attendant, the jailer, to protect the inmates from a Klan that held the keys to the jail. The scenery was ripe for mob violence.[4]
From the day of his arrest to that moment, every article about Johnson received front page coverage. On Friday, September 29, 1922, exactly one year after the death of his grandfather Ransom Johnson, newspaper coverage of Ennis Johnson -- a Black teenager accused of the attempted rape of a young white girl -- abruptly stopped. Johnson was held in jail alongside his brother-in-law (for a separate set of charges) for over one month before his bail was decreased to $100 by Judge C. R. Pearman in a Habeas Corpus Hearing. This abrupt shift in tactics was due to County Attorney Boyd’s conclusion that, “the evidence indicated that there had only been a disturbance.” Boyd determined that it was “doubtful” a grand jury would vote to indict on the original charges. Ennis Johnson posted bail and left Denton County, never to return.[5]
As a result, the spaces where Ennis belongs are empty, silent. After Ennis disappeared, his father, Lee Roy, moved in with his grandmother, Sylvia. After Sylvia Johnson’s death in 1935, the two remaining members of the Johnson family -- Lee Roy and Lonnie -- abandoned the family’s land, gave de facto control of the property to neighbors, and moved west. But, in 1986, a search was made for any heirs of Ransom and Sylvia Johnson to determine true land ownership rights. In this search, every child and grandchild of Ransom and Sylvia Johnson was listed, and old residents signed an affidavit of the search’s completeness. Therein, no mention was made of Ennis Johnson. It was as if he had never existed. But he did exist. The story of Ennis Johnson’s life and near-death struggle had been forgotten by the entire community. As Gloria Etheridge Knight writes in Poems From Prison, “He is an empty space.”
Ennis Johnson is a lens through which we can see the season of violence. As calls for the lynching of Ennis Johnson rose, all of the features of violence identified in the micro pattern emerged. While he was named, his age was doubted. Johnson was arrested for a crime that, as County Attorney Boyd later acknowledged, was uncertain to have occurred. The investigation into the crime was slow and legitimately did not produce a conviction. Ennis was placed into jail, but the Sheriff and his family left town leaving only one jailer to contain the crowd of prisoners held within. Klan activity swelled and Klavern 136 burned down a Black church only blocks away from the Denton County Jail. Yet after a month of detention, Ennis Johnson was able to flee the county alive. Why did the fervor die down? What piece of this puzzle remains missing?
Ennis Johnson’s grandfather, Ransom Johnson, was born into bondage in Marion County, Texas in 1862. At the age of twenty, Johnson married Sylvia Greer and over two decades the couple had thirteen children. Only two of their children survived to the age of thirty. The Johnsons moved to Denton County in the 1890s and, though illiterate, quickly began buying and selling large swaths of land from both locals and the Texas and Pacific Railroad Company. Johnson rented much of the land to tenants -- both white and black. In the 1910s, the Johnson family moved from the northern edge of Denton County into Pilot Point city limits off Pilot Point and Stamps Factory Road. Ransom and Sylvia lived with their three surviving children, Lonnie, Lee Roy, and Odie, along with Lonnie’s son from his first marriage to Lydia Avery named Ennis. While living in Pilot Point, Ransom ran a family farm and a small dry goods store while Sylvia took care of the home.[6]
Ransom Johnson was “well known among the white people” of Denton, so much so that when the tires were stolen from his vehicle in January 1921, Constable J.M. Sanders seriously investigated the theft. The very next day, Clyde Mask was arrested for the theft. Ransom Johnson was integrated within the greater Pilot Point Black community as well, both as a landlord and a shop-keep. He rented land to the Moore family on the Cooke County line and one of the Moore sons, Heaver, married Johnson’s daughter, Odie, in 1920. Both Black and white citizens financed land purchases and shop items through Johnson and he held several promissory notes for those items as of 1921. [7]
On the morning of September 29, 1921, Ransom Johnson loaded up several cases of soda and set out to deliver the bottles to a grocery store nearby. Just before 11am, Johnson made his delivery and stopped, parched, in the back of the store to drink from one of the remaining bottles. While in the rear of the grocery store, Johnson found a bottle containing a brown liquid. When the soda was approximately halfway gone, Johnson -- reportedly -- added two ounces of the mystery liquid to his soda bottle. He finished the drink and immediately became ill with intense abdominal pain. Dr. J. M. Harris attended to Johnson beginning at 11am as he suffered in excruciating fashion. Ransom Johnson died at 9:20pm on the night of September 29, 1921 after suffering ten hours of “intense” pain. He was buried at Pilot Point Memorial Cemetery on October 1, 1921. His official cause of death was accidental poisoning by carbon dioxide.[8]
When he died, Ransom Johnson left behind a family of heirs. The Johnson family owned four downtown lots comprising nearly an entire block of property in downtown Pilot Point. His heirs were Lee Roy and Lonnie who moved to Quakertown in Denton and later to California, Sylvia (his wife), Ennis Johnson, his grandson, and Oda Moore, who deeded her interest in the property to her mother six days after Ransom’s death. [9]
Oda (Odie) Johnson was twenty years old when she married Heaver Moore. Six months after the death of her father, on March 23, 1922, Odie Johnson Moore was shot in the head with a .38 caliber pistol. Odie died at 2:30pm in Pilot Point and officials immediately began a manhunt for her husband. While he was rumored to have left town, Heaver Moore was found at a relative’s house near the Cooke County line -- where the family owned property. When questioned, Moore explained that a Black man entered their home and shot Odie. Moore attempted to shoot the man as he ran away but was unsuccessful. Fearing for his own safety, Heaver hid in the woods until nightfall when he sought refuge at a relative’s home and asked the relative to contact law enforcement. Heaver explained that a Black man had shot Odie and that Heaver fired back but missed. Fearful the man was out in the area searching for the sole witness to the crime, Heaver hid in the woods until nightfall when he contacted the police to report the death of Odie. Moore was charged with the murder of his wife, held in jail for six months, convicted in October 1922, and served a six-year sentence in the penitentiary as a result. Odie was laid to rest beside her father in Pilot Point.[10]
After the deaths of Ransom and Odie, the relocation of Lonnie and Lee Roy, and the erasure of Ennis, Sylvia Johnson was left as the sole heir of the Johnson Family land and money with no future for familial inheritance. She slowly sold off their land holdings and notes and, when she passed in 1935, her land was assumed by the Bruce family in Pilot Point. It is details such as these that may, one day, lead to the reintegration of the story of the Johnson family back into community discourse.
The disappearance of the Johnson family is only visible through context. Without first identifying the targeted erasure of Ennis Johnson, the poisoning of Ransom Johnson seems like a terrible accident and, without the facts which surround the deaths of both Ennis and Ransom, Odie Moore’s death appears to be a case of domestic violence. Yet, when all three pieces are placed together and evaluated as a group, the likelihood that the Johnson family was targeted by violence between September 1921 and September 1922 dramatically increases.
[1] “Negro Charged with Attempted Assault on Small White Girl,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 26, 1922, accessed September 30, 2019. Newspaper Archives (UNT); “Cotton Receipts Exceed Last Year’s,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 23, 1922. Newspaper Archives (UNT); “Weevil Does Most Damage to Cotton,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 26, 1922. Newspaper Archives (UNT).
[2] “Negro Charged with Attempted Assault on Small White Girl,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 26, 1922, accessed September 30, 2019. Newspaper Archives (UNT).
[3] “Denton,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 28, 1922, accessed October 28, 2019. Genealogy Bank; “Local News in Brief,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 29, 1922. Newspaper Archive (UNT).
[4] “Klan Klonklave at Prosper Tonight,” McKinney Courier-Gazette, September 28, 1922, accessed February 11, 2020“Collin County News,” Denton Record-Chronicle, October 2, 1922. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Sanger News Notes,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 27, 1922. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Invisible Body to Conduct Open Air Ceremonial,” McKinney Courier-Gazette, September 28, 1922. Newspapers.com; Denton County Sixteenth District Court, Criminal Minutes and Indexes 1914-1941, Denton County Archives; Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Kluxers Initiate Class Near Prosper,” McKinney Courier-Gazette, September 29, 1922, accessed February 11, 2020. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Collin County News,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 30, 1922. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Mentions,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 28, 1922. Newspaper Archive (UNT).
[5] “Negro Charged with Attempted Assault on Small White Girl,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 26, 1922, accessed September 30, 2019. Newspaper Archives (UNT) Link; “Denton,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 28, 1922, accessed October 28, 2019. Genealogy Bank; “Bond for Enis Johnson Set for $1500 After Hearing,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 27, 1922. Newspaper Archives (UNT); $1500 is equivalent to $22779.64 in 2018 money according to “Inflation Calculator,” WestEgg, Accessed September 30, 2019, https://westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi; “Denton,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 28, 1922, accessed October 28, 2019. Genealogy Bank; “Negro Granted Bail in Sum of $100 Friday,” Denton Record-Chronicle, October 27, 1922, accessed February 14, 2020. Newspaper Archive (UNT); Ennis moved to Dallas with his mother and grandmother where he lived until at least 1930. Thirteenth Census of the United States, Dallas County Clerk, Dallas County (Dallas, TX), Schedule 1: Population.
[6] -- but, in spite of his consistent land ownership, his family always self-identified as renters on the census. It is unclear in the remaining records whether this was due to fear of their economic status being made known or if they legitimately did not have control of the land they owned. Fourteenth Census of the United States, Denton County, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX): Schedule 1 (Population), accessed July 31, 2019. Ancestry; “Ransom Johnson,” Death Certificate, Texas State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Denton County (TX), accessed July 29, 2019. Ancestry; Fifteenth Census of the United States, Denton County, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX): Schedule 1 (Population), accessed July 31, 2019. Ancestry; “Real Estate Transfers,” Denton Record-Chronicle, January 29, 1917, accessed June 15, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); Real Estate Transfers,” Denton Record-Chronicle, November 8, 1913, accessed June 15, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Real Estate Transfers,” Denton Record-Chronicle, November 21, 1912, accessed June 15, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Real Estate Transfers,” Denton Record-Chronicle, February 3, 1920, accessed June 15, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); Sixteenth Census of the United States, Denton County, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX): Schedule 1 (Population), accessed July 31, 2019. Ancestry.
[7] “Negro Drinks ‘High-Life’ Thru Mistakes and Dies,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 30, 1921, accessed July 31, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Pilot Point Budget,” Denton Record-Chronicle, January 6, 1921. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Local News in Brief,” Denton Record-Chronicle, January 6, 1921. Newspaper Archive (UNT). Clyde Mask was the brother-in-law of Jim Walden; One of Moore’s daughters, Ida, married Joe Goodner who disappeared after two years in the penitentiary in 1923. Ida was listed as a widow in the following census.
[8] The writers at the Denton Record-Chronicle believe Ransom Johnson assumed the liquid was whiskey and this explains why Johnson added it to his soda. “Negro Drinks ‘High-Life’ Thru Mistakes and Dies,” Denton Record-Chronicle, September 30, 1921. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Ransom Johnson,” Death Certificate, Texas State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Denton County (TX).
[9] Ransom and Sylvia Johnson owned Lot 16 Block 12, Lot 4 Block 12, Lot 5 Block 12, and Lot 16 Block 5 of the T&P in September 1921.
[10] Land Deeds, Denton County Clerk, Denton County (TX); Affidavit, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX). Link; “Odie Moore,” Death Certificate, Texas State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Denton County (TX); “Denton,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 26, 1922, accessed December 11, 2018. Genealogy Bank; “Negress Killed at Pilot Point,” Denton Record-Chronicle, March 24, 1922, accessed November 17, 2018. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Denton,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 15, 1922, accessed December 11, 2019. Genealogy Bank. Interestingly, Heaver Moore was in the Denton County Jail at the same time as Ennis Johnson.