Hanna Basin Museum
  • Museum
    • 2020 Carbon Cemetery Association and Hanna Basin Historical Society ​Spring Newsletter
    • 2019: Hanna Basin Historical Society and Carbon Cemetery Association Newsletter
    • Visitors to the Museum
    • Books and Magazines to Read Online about the Hanna Basin
    • Books Available for Purchase at the Hanna Basin Museum
    • Order Form for Materials Available for Purchase at the Museum
    • Membership and Support
    • Links to Other Wyoming Museums >
      • Medicine Bow, Wyoming, Museum and Hanna Basin Neighbor
      • Rock Springs, Wyoming, Historical Museum
    • Copyright Infringement Notification
  • Carbon
    • Hanna Basin Museum - Time Line
    • CARBON CEMETERY RECORDS
    • Carbon Mine Fatality Records
    • Visitors to the Carbon Cemetery
    • Carbon - Wings of Imagination - A Letter From Old Carbon
    • Carbon - A Poem by Mrs. C. E. Ellis
    • 2003: Carbon Cemetery Restoration
    • 2011: Carbon, Carbon County, Cemetery Restoration 2011
    • 2011: Bow River FFA Community Service Project: Carbon Cemetery
    • 2014: The Carbon Cemetery
    • 2015: The Old Carbon Cemetery Privy
  • Hanna
    • HANNA HAPPENINGS
    • THE HANNA CEMETERY: From the Bottom of the Mine
    • HANNA CEMETERY RECORDS
    • Hanna Burial Plots and Lots >
      • Hanna Blocks and Lots 1 - 6
      • Hanna Plots 1 - 50
      • Hanna Plots 51 - 80
      • Hanna Plots 81 - 129
      • Hanna Plots 130 - 175
      • Hanna Plots 176 - 209
      • Hanna Plots 210 - 298
      • Hanna Plots 299 - 349
      • Hanna Plots 350 - 379
      • Hanna Plots 380 - 419
      • Hanna Plots 420 - 500
    • Hanna Early Churches >
      • Introduction to Hanna’s Early Churches
      • Episcopal Church - History, Bell and Cross
      • Methodist Church - Organ
      • Colored Baptist Church
    • Hanna Military in the Hanna Cemetery >
      • Hanna Cemetery - In The Military
      • Arthurs, Peter Killed in Action World War I
      • Love, Michael V. Killed In The Line Of Duty
      • Jones, William D. Died of Wounds Received In Action World War I
      • Lucas, Bernard R. Killed In Action World War II
      • Lucas, William C. Died of Wounds Recieved In Action World War II
      • Luoma, Arvo A. Killed in Action World War II
      • McAtee, William J. Killed in Action Vietnam
      • Saari, John Killed in Action World War II
    • Hanna Cemetery - Japanese Monuments Transcribed
    • Grave Headstones for Hanna Miner Fatalities Buried Elsewhere than Hanna
    • Hanna Where Did They Come From?
  • The People
  • Schools
  • Coal Mines
    • A History of the Hanna Coal Miner from 1868 to 2017: Bob Leathers' Notebook
    • Hanna Basin Mining Companies and Mines
    • Men Injured in the Hanna Mines
    • 1903 June 30: Explosion of the Union Pacific Coal Company's No. 1 mine in Hanna >
      • Hanna 1903 Explosion Explained
      • List of Miners Killed in the June 30, 1903 Explosion
      • 1904 State Mine Inspector's Report for 1903 Explosion
      • 1903 Explosion Coroner's Inquest
      • 1903 Explosion - Earle Holmes Letter to Wilson Gobble
    • Hanna 1908 Mine Explosions Explained >
      • List of Miners Killed in the March 28, 1908 Explosions
      • 1908 Explosion Coroner's Inquest Report
      • Noah Young's 1908 Hanna Explosion Report to Governor B.B. Brooks
      • 1908 State Coal Mine Inspectors Report - 1908 Hanna Mine Number 1 Explosion
      • David M. Elias - State Mine Inspector Killed in 1908 Explosion
      • 1908 Explosion - Gov. B.B. Brooks Communiations
      • April 3, 1908 Chums From Boyhood Died Side By Side
      • April 16, 1908 U.P. May Not Be Liable
      • 1908: Newspaper Articles from The Wigan Observer in England About the March 28, 1908 Explosion of the Union Pacific Coal Company's No. 1 Mine in Hanna
      • Death of Noah Young - State Mine Inspector for the 1908 Explosion of Mine No. 1
    • 1916 Labor Agreement Between the United Mine Workers of America and the Southern Wyoming Coal Operators
    • 1917 Labor Agreement Between the United Mine Workers of America and the Southern Wyoming Coal Operators
    • 1970 - 1980: Bill Becker's Hanna Strip Mine Blasting Videos
  • Gallery
    • Images from Early Hanna Basin and Wyoming
    • Early History of the Union Pacific Railroad
    • 1910-1920: McNulty Family Photo Collection ​Albert Film - Hanna Basin Adventurer
    • 1920 -1930: Gert Milliken's Photo Collection of Unknown Children, Women, Men, and Families in Hanna
    • 1963 October 2: A Large Cattle Drive from Palm Livestock Company at Elk Mountain ​ to Hanna's Union Pacific Railroad Stockyard
    • 2017 April 18: Un​ion Pacific Steam Engine 844 Stopped at Hanna, Wyoming
    • 2019 May 17 and May 4: Big Boy​ 4014 and Engine 844 Were Running the Rails Again
    • Images of Old Carbon Today
  • Notebook

Elias Johnson

Images and notes from Lynne Kuderko

Picture
Eli Johnson (Lynne Kuderko Collection)

Elias Johnson – Long-time Hanna Resident
by Lynne Kuderko
Elias Johnson was born May 16, 1877, in Virginia.  He enlisted in the Spanish War and served as cook in Company E of the 10thU S Infantry (colored).

According to an interview (Wyoming: The Feature and Discussion Magazine of the Equality State, Vol. 1, No. 4, June-July 1957, page 10), Eli came to Hanna in 1905, and worked in the UP mines until his retirement in 1949.  He married Carrie L. Francis on June 18, 1906 (Carbon County Marriage Records).  

Carrie died in 1942 and was buried in the Hanna Cemetery. Her tombstone provides these dates:  1884-1942.  It is thought that she married in about 1901 and was widowed in the 1903 Hanna Mine Explosion.  

Eli retired from the Hanna mines in 1949, lived alone after Carrie’s death, and spent his time traveling, “whenever the impulse strikes him, which is often” (Interview, 1957, referenced above). “Hanna has been home for me nearly as long as I can remember,” Eli said, “and it will always be home.”

Elias Johnson died in Cheyenne on May 1, 1971 at Cheyenne’s Memorial (County) Hospital and was buried in Bethel Cemetery, in the section designated for veterans.  His obituary (Wyoming State Tribune, Cheyenne, May 3, 1971, p. 16) states he was born in Pocahontas, Virginia, and had moved from Hanna to Cheyenne eight years before his death, residing at 2011 Snyder Avenue with Eunice and Herman Bracket.  He was a member of the AME Church, the United Mine Workers of America, Local No. 750, and served as a cook in the army at Macon and Augusta, Georgia, during the Spanish-American War.  

Eunice Bracket provided the information for his obituary and for his death certificate, which reveals he died of pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema – in keeping with his years in the mine. The total cost of his burial was $673.18 – of which the US Treasury paid $505 and Eunice Bracket paid $168.18. The pallbearers are listed as Amos Turner, James Boatner, Nathaniel Tucker, Nathaniel Wilson, C. N. Edwards, and C. N. Suthers.  The songs chosen for the service were “Last Mile of the Way” and “He’ll Understand, He’ll Say Well Done.”  

The death certificate also reveals that Elias was the son of Ed and Lucy Johnson.  In 1900, the Johnson family is found in Clear Fork, Tazewell County, Virginia, a town no longer found on the map.  Edward Johnson, then 60, born May 1840, worked as an office janitor. Lucy Johnson, 58, born in March 1842, is the mother of 11 children, only 5 living.  Elias, here 23, works as a coal miner, as does his brother, Matthew, born March 1883.  A sister, Sarah J. Johnson, 20, was born July 1879, and is the mother of 1 child, none living.  Boarding with the family are two men, coal miners, too.

The town of Pocahontas, where Elias was born, sits snug on the West Virginia border and became known as the location of the start of the region’s coal boom.  It became a town in 1881, and by 1883 the Norfolk and Western Railway had made its way to the Pocahontas coal mines.  Like Hanna, Pocahontas had a number of coal disasters, and on March 13, 1884, an explosion took the lives of 114 coal miners, who are buried in a mass grave in a cemetery created for that purpose (www.pocahontasva.org). 
​
Elias, then about 6, had a way to go to learn his craft.  But at the start of the Spanish-American War, he may have seen military service as a way out of the mines—at least the Virginia mines. (Lynne Kuderko, January 28, 2019)
Picture
Eli Johnson (Lynne Kuderko Collection)
Picture
Eli Johnson (Lynne Kuderko Collection)
Picture
Eli Johnson (Lynne Kuderko Collection)

Hanna Basin Museum Website – A Connection To The Past