William Johnson Cabin

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the William Johnson Cabin, right here in Caldwell County. Now settle in, because this little structure has seen more life than most buildings twice its size. We're talking about a shotgun-style cabin, the kind where you could open the front door and the back door and fire a round clean through without hitting a wall.

Built sometime in the eighteen seventies, out near Tenney Creek, eleven miles northeast of Luling. And the man who built it, he was no ordinary homesteader. The Reverend William Johnson, born in eighteen twenty-two, was both a farmer and a Baptist minister.

He came to Texas way back in eighteen thirty-three, which means by the time he drove the first nail into this cabin, he'd already put a good chunk of his life into Texas soil. He and his family, five children in that household, carved out their place near that creek and made it home. Now Reverend Johnson passed in eighteen eighty-nine, but this cabin kept right on working.

In the late eighteen nineties, a fellow by the name of T. B. Coopwood, a medical doctor, took to using the cabin as his office.

So what had been a family home became a place where folks came when they were hurting and hoping. Meanwhile, William Johnson's son, W. E.

Johnson, known to everyone as Billie, went on to become a physician himself, practicing over in Tilmon. Healing just seemed to follow this family around. As for the land, the Jeff Connolly family had been its owners since eighteen ninety-three.

Generation after generation holding on to that ground. Then came nineteen seventy-two, when Mr. and Mrs. Jett Connolly made a decision, they donated the cabin so it could be relocated and preserved.

That same year, the Luling Garden Club took on the restoration work, bringing this old shotgun cabin back to something worth looking at. Some buildings just refuse to disappear, and this one had too many stories in its walls to let the years take it quietly.

What the marker says

The Rev. William Johnson (1822-89), farmer and Baptist minister who came to Texas in 1833, built this shotgun-style cabin near Tenney Creek (11 mi. NE of Luling) in 1870s. Family included five children. His son, W. E. (Billie) became a physician in Tilmon. Since 1893 the Jeff Connolly family has owned Johnson's land. T. B. Coopwood, M. d., used cabin as office in late 1890s. Mr. and Mrs. Jett Connolly donated structure in 1972 to be relocated here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973 Incise in base: Restored by Luling Garden Club, 1972