Johnson explained his being there in this wild region by saying that he had participated actively in the Canadian patriot war against the Dominion of Canada, that the attempted revolution had failed, that he had lost all his property by it, and had been driven and chased all through and among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence river in his boat with his daughter Kate, that a reward had been offered for him, that he had given up all hope of success and determined to seek safety and quietude by coming to this country. All this seemed plausible, as I heard the brave deeds of the patriots rehearsed in song and poetry. But in escaping that trouble he ran into the jaws of another at the outset. It seemed that in coming into a strange neighborhood, instead of making the people his friends by conciliation and prudent conduct, he got into trouble at the start by taking possession of the claim of one of the Bennett party. They remonstrated and he promised to pay for the claim, but never did, though Johnson claimed that the trouble was about the location of the county seat. Not long after I was at his place, after giving him notice, they determined to oust him. They took him out in the brush and gave him a very severe flogging, loaded him and all his belongings into sleds and sent him out of the country. He applied for aid at Marion and Dubuque, and Surveyor General Wilson, a New Hampshire man, took him and his daughter Kate to Iowa City, in his fine Boston made sleigh, to interest Governor Chambers in his behalf. When the hostilities came to an end, the result was disastrous to both parties. Bennett became a fugitive and his mill building was stopped. Johnson was shot. Kate found her a loving, trusting husband. Hosea Gray made considerable money out of it; Ormus Clark, the first permanent settler of Central City, spent a lot of money for defense, and Colonel Preston laid the foundation of his splendid fame and fortune as an attorney from it.