John Albert Johnson (July 28, 1861September 21, 1909) was an American politician. He served in the Minnesota State Senate from January 1897 to January 1901. He was the 16th governor of Minnesota from January 4, 1905, until his death on September 21, 1909. He was a Democrat. Johnson was the first Minnesota governor born in Minnesota. He was only the second non-Republican governor in the previous 50 years and the third since statehood. He was also first to serve a full term in the present state capitol, and the first to die in office. Johnson sought the 1908 Democratic presidential nomination but lost to William Jennings Bryan. Biography John Albert Johnson was born on a farm near St. Peter, Minnesota, on July 28, 1861. The eldest child of an impoverished Swedish family abandoned by an alcoholic father, he left school at 13 to support his mother and siblings. Local Democrats, impressed with the enterprising young store clerk, asked him to join their party and edit the strongly Democratic St. Peter Herald. His journalistic success attracted statewide attention and fostered political aspirations. Johnson married Elinor M. Preston on June 1, 1894. Johnson failed in early campaigns for state office from his heavily Republican home county but was elected to the state senate in 1898, indicating his growing bipartisan appeal. Elected governor three times—in 1904, 1906, and 1908—Johnson's ability to reason and work with legislators of both parties resulted in such reform legislation as reorganization of the state's insurance department to the benefit of policyholders, reduction of railroad passenger and freight rates, and removal of constitutional restraints on the legislature's power to tax. Johnson began his third term with reservations. His health was precarious, and he wanted to pursue a promising sideline as a public orator. When he died suddenly at age 48 after surgery at the Mayo Clinic, the state's citizens were grief-stricken. Legacy Johnson was the first of three governors to die in office. Governor Winfield Scott Hammond was the second, after suffering a stroke in 1915. Floyd B. Olson was the third and most recent, dying of cancer in 1936. Statues of Johnson are on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol and the grounds of the Nicollet County Courthouse. Johnson Senior High School in St. Paul is named for him, as is the portion of U.S. Route 169 from Saint Peter to the Twin Cities. The John A.