Waldo Porter Johnson was born September 16, 1817, in Bridgeport, Harrison County, Virginia. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1861, and moved to Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri, the following year. He was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 1861 to January 1862, when he was expelled for disloyalty to the government. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate army as a lieutenant colonel of the 4th Missouri Infantry and later served in the Confederate Congress. He briefly resided in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, following the war, before returning to Osceola, where he died August 14, 1885. William Tell Johnson, son of Waldo Porter Johnson and Emily Moore, was born August 4, 1848, in Osceola. He married Agnes M. Harris September 15, 1885, in Denver, Colorado. Their children were: (1) Margaret Johnson, born July 23, 1886, who married James P. Morley; (2) Robert Waldo Johnson, born May 29, 1889, who married Agnes Shackleford; (3) Mary Agnes Johnson (1892-1977), who married William J. Bland; and (4) Helen Johnson, born February 27, 1894, died June 24, 1894. William Tell Johnson moved to Kansas City around 1880 and became a prominent lawyer with the firm of Johnson & Lucas. He died in Kansas City in September 1930.