defeating John Prunty, who had represented them for 22 years. One of Johnson's first acts was introducing legislation organizing the town of Bridgeport on 15 acres of his land. That passed on January 15, 1816; Johnson became one of the seven original trustees. He was reelected to the House of Delegates in 1816 and elected and reelected again in 1818-1822, after which he decided not to run again. Johnson would build a mansion in Bridgeport, the Governor Joseph Johnson House. At the urging of Judge John G. Jackson ran against prominent orator and Congressman Philip Doddridge, Johnson ran for Congress and upset the incumbent. He served in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Congresses (March 4, 1823 – March 3, 1825, and became chair of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings in the Nineteenth Congress. He lost his reelection campaign in 1826 to the Twentieth Congress, but voters elected him to the Twenty-second Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Doddridge, so he again served from January 21 to March 3, 1833. Johnson did not run for renomination in 1832. During this period, Congress built and maintained the National Road westward from Cumberland, Maryland; Johnson sat on the Cumberland Road committee. A key question became where the road would cross the Ohio River. Although Wheeling became the crossing point, others had advocated Parkersburg as the crossing point, following what would later become the Northwestern Turnpike (now U.S. Route 50) through Romney and Clarksburg to Parkersburg. Part of the compromise that allowed the Wheeling route was the construction of a road between Wheeling and Romney. Johnson again ran for Congress as a Jacksonian in 1834, won the seat in the Twenty-fourth Congress, and was reelected (as a Democrat) to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1841). Johnson became chair of the Committee on Accounts in the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1840 but was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1844. Johnson was elected to the Twenty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1845 - March 3, 1847) and became chair of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Twenty-ninth Congress). He again declined to run for renomination in 1846. In 1847, Johnson again ran for election to the Virginia House of Delegates and was reelected the following year, again serving part-time while pursuing his farming and other business