H. Thomas Johnson (December 29, 1808 – March 25, 1878)"In Memoriam", Daily Arkansas Gazette (May 22, 1878), p. 2."Meeting of the Bar Association in Respect to the Death of the Hon. Thomas Johnson", Daily Arkansas Gazette (March 27, 1878), p. 4. was chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1845 to 1852.

Born in Maryland,Fay Hempstead, Historical Review of Arkansas (1911), p. 452. Johnson moved to St. Louis, Missouri in the autumn of 1834 and to Batesville, Arkansas in January, 1836.

Johnson made connections to the Conway-Johnson family through his marriage to Louisa Crease in 1839. In 1840, Johnson was elected as 3rd Circuit Judge in Northeast Arkansas. In 1844, the Democratic Party-dominated Arkansas General Assembly elected Johnson to be chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court following the expiration of Judge Daniel Ringo's term. Ringo was a Whig. Soon after his seating on the supreme court, he moved to Little Rock. Johnson served as chief justice until 1852. In 1877, he died at his home in Little Rock, at the age of 69.

He was a tall, darkhaired, thin, "dry man, of great honesty and uprightness of character".

References