CAPT. LEVI JOHNSON was one of the most interesting of the early characters of Cleveland, and a man whose constructive enterprise had much to do with changing and directing the current of business activities which eventualized in the rearing of a mighty city where at his early acquaintance had stood only a village with no special distinction to mark it out from half a dozen or more other places of similar size and importance.  Two specific distinctions have always been accorded Captain Johnson in local history.  The first frame building in the town was put up by him, and he also owned the first ship ever launched at this part.
     He was born in Herkimer County, New York, Apr. 25, 1786, and was early left an orphan.  He remained in the home of an uncle until he was fourteen.  He worked on a farm, attended school when opportunity offered, and from the first his training was one of diligence and good habits of body and mind.  He spent four years with Ephraim Derrick in learning the trade of carpenter and joiner.  He possessed a mechanical ingenuity, and though his school opportunties were limited he had accurate processes of thought and a methodical mind which did much to promote his subsequent business success.  After leaving his first employer he was with Laflet Remington as a journeyman workman for three years.  He also put in a year building barns in his section of New York, being associated with Stephen Remington.
     This brings his life up to 1807.  The great tide of immigration which was destined to people and develop the Middle West had already begun to flow, and thousands were interested in the lands west of the Alleghenys.  A brother of Stephen Remington had toured Northern Ohio, and was especially favorably impressed with the advantages of the settlement of Newburg in Cuyahoga County.  On his return East he made a report of his investigations, which was the direct cause of inducing a large number of people to go from New York to Ohio. One of them was Stephen Remington, who at once shut up his shop as a carpenter, packed his tools, and in the fall of 1807 started for Cuyhoga County.
     In the spring of 1808 Levi Johnson followed suit.  However, his journey to Northern Ohio was a series of stages. On reaching Bloomfield, New York, he spent the summer working at his trade, and a few months later proceeded westward, carrying a knapsack on his back.  Arriving at Buffalo, he again found employment and put in the winter there.  In the month of February his uncle reached Buffalo, also on his way to Ohio, and the two then journeyed together westward.  They arrived in Cleveland Mar. 10, 1809.  They had traveled in a sleigh to Cleveland.  Warmer weather set in, the snow disappeared, and the sleigh had to be abandoned.  Some of the party then proceeded on horseback to Huron County, where they met Judge Wright and Mr. Ruggles, who were agents for the Connecticut "fire land," in that part of Ohio.  One of the immediate needs for the development of that country was a saw mill.  Levi Johnson took the contract to build one at the town of Jessup, now known as Wakeman.
     In the interval Mr. Johnson returned to Cleveland and fortunately found a home in the family of Judge Walworth, then the leading citizen of the village.  Judge Walworth secured Mr. Johnson's services to build an office.  Up to that time all the houses in Cleveland were of logs.  Judge Walworth's office was the first frame building.  At that time Euclid was a flourishing settlement and had the only saw mill in that section of the country.  That saw mill made the lumber which was used by Mr. Johnson in putting up the frame office on Superior Street where the American House now stands.
     Having thus laid his first claim to distinction in the history of Cleveland, Mr. Johnson returned to Huron County for the purpose of carrying out his contract to erect a saw mill for his uncle.  It required three or four months to do this, and Mr. Johnson then returned to Cleveland determined to make this his permanent home.  For several years he was almost constantly employed building houses and other buildings in Cleveland and in Newburg.  He was employed in constructing a saw mill on Tinker's Creek for Mr. Jessup, and while working there made the acquaintance of Miss Margaret Montier.  She was the first white girl to come to Huron County and lived there with a family named Hawley.  Captain Johnson and Miss Montier became well acquainted, determined to proceed through life as partners, and she went back to Cleveland with Mr. Johnson and temporarily lived in the home of Judge Walworth, which was then the chief place in the village of sixty inhabitants.  In 1811 Levi Johnson and Miss Montier were married, and they soon set up their home in a log cabin he had erected on Euclid Avenue near the square.
     In the Cleveland of a century ago there were buildings at every turn which were the product of Levi Johnson's skill as a carpenter and contractor.  In 1812 he took a contract to build the first court house and jail at the northwest corner of the square, opposite the present site of the First Presbyterian Church.  The material was to be of logs.  In order to make the structure as solid as possible, the broad sides of the logs were placed together.  About noon on the 10th of September, 1813, Mr. Johnson and his men were putting the finishing touches to this building.  Sounds were heard that were first taken to be distant thunder, but on more careful investigation proved to be the roar of distant cannon.  Captain Johnson and his workmen hastened to the banks of the lake, all the inhabitants of the village had in the meantime collected, and this was the first announcement to the people of Cleveland of the great battle being fought at Put-in-Bay by Commodore Perry with the British fleet, a battle which gave the command of the Great Lakes to the American forces during the remainder of the War of 1812.
     A few days after this battle Levi Johnson and a friend found a large flat boat that had been built by General Jessup for the conveyance of troops and had been abandoned.  The two men bought a hundred bushels of potatoes and loading them on the flat boat proceeded to the army and navy headquarters at Put-in-Bay, where the potatoes proved a welcome addition to the army fare and brought the partners a handsome profit.  That was the first of Levi Johnson 's successful commercial transactions and as much as anything else started him on the road to prosperity. Later he and his companion loaded the flat boat with supplies which were taken to the army at Detroit, and again gave them a large profit.  Mr. Johnson entered into a contract with the quartermaster of the Detroit Post to carry a cargo of clothing to the army.  It was late in the season and the boat was obstructed by ice, compelling a landing at Huron.  Nevertheless the cargo was delivered and those were the initial successes of Capt. Levi Johnson as a contractor and an important figure in the lake transportation business.
     He next proceeded with the construction of a vessel of his own.  The keel was laid for a ship of thirty-five tons, named Highland.  Under many difficulties this boat was finally completed and its launching was a big event in the history of the Cleveland of that day.  The boat was hoisted on wheels, and with much strenuous exertion was finally drawn to the edge of the water by twenty-eight yoke of oxen.  This launching occurred on the river at the foot of Superior Street, and an immense crowd, as measured in proportion to the population of Northern Ohio at that time, cheered and applauded the exploit.  It was the first boat of any size constructed and launched at Cleveland and marks the beginning of Cleveland's history as a shipping center.
     In the meantime Mr. Johnson continued his business as a builder.  He is credited with having built the gallows on which the Indian O'Mic was hanged.  In 1811 he put up the Buckeye House and many of the historic structures of the early days were the work of his hands and his organization.  He made a great success of his first boat, and when it was launched it was requisitioned for army purposes and on it army stores were transported between Buffalo and Detroit.  Two loads of soldiers were also taken from Buffalo to the command of Major Camp at Detroit.  On the return trip the guns left by Harrison at Maumee were taken to Erie.  In this business Mr. Johnson lost $300 as a result of the quartermaster absconding. In 1815 he began transporting stores to Maiden, making his first trip on March 20th.  On the second trip to Detroit he was hailed when passing Maiden, and when his boat did not stop a shot was fired, the ball passing through the foresail, and after the second shot Mr. Johnson brought his vessel to the shore.  The commander of the fort, demanded the mail, but Mr. Johnson declined to give it up and though an attempt was made to detain his vessel he spread sail and with a favorable wind got away from his pursuers and did not stop until he had delivered the mail safely at the Detroit post office.  In 1815 Captain Johnson built the schooner Neptune, of sixty-five tons, and after taking it to Buffalo he returned with a cargo of merchandise consigned to Jonathan Williamson.  In 1817 this vessel made a trip to Mackinac for the American Fur Company, and was employed in the fur trade until the fall of 1819.
     In 1824 Captain Johnson and his associates built the first steamer ever constructed at Cleveland.  It was known as the Enterprise and was of about 200 tons capacity.  The Cleveland Press recently published some interesting items concerning this pioneer steamboat, and in the .course of the article said: "The building of the Enterprise may be said to mark the beginning of Cleveland 's importance in Great Lakes traffic and the industrial progress resulting therefrom.  The Enterprise was much different from the ore freighters that now enter the Cleveland harbor.  She was perhaps one-fifth as long and burned wood for fuel.  To Clevelanders she represented a great evolution not only in freight but in passenger traffic.  Those accustomed to travel by water had been forced to put up with rude, stuffy quarters in the cabin of a sailing vessel.  Although the Enterprise mainly carried freight, she had quarters for passengers."  The Enterprise subsequently sailed back and forth over the lake between Buffalo, Detroit and Cleveland until 1828.  In that year Captain Johnson sold his interest in the vessel.  In 1830, with the firm of Goodman & Wilkeson, he built the Commodore on the Chagrin River, and the construction of this vessel closed his career as a ship builder.  He afterwards contracted to build for the general government the old stone lighthouse on the site of the present one at Cleveland harbor.  He also built the lighthouse at Cedar Point and set the buoys marking the channel to and into Sandusky Bay.  Later Captain Johnson built 700 feet of the east government pier at Cleveland.
     His various ventures as a builder and vessel owner gave him what was then regarded as a substantial fortune, and he prudently invested it in real estate.  He always showed great faith in Cleveland as a coming city and that faith has been remarkably justified since his lifetime.  Even before be died he was rated as a millionaire, and yet he had come to Cleveland almost as a penniless workman.  In 1860 he became a director in the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie. He was always a builder, though not in the original sense.  Through his capital he erected some of the structures which were considered the latest word in modern architecture in those days, and he improved some of the most conspicuous lots in the city.
     In 1812 Captain Johnson was chosen coroner of Cuyahoga County, being the first incumbent of the office.  He was also the first man appointed deputy sheriff.  He was one of the last survivors of that group of men who had laid the permanent foundation of the city, whose greatness he was in a position to appreciate and realize before his death.  Capt. Levi Johnson died Dec. 19, 1871, at the age of eighty-six.  He and his wife reared three children: Harriet, Periander and Philander L. 
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 146 - Vol. II