In 1835 he led a company of 120 armed volunteers from Monrovia on a punitive expedition to engage King Joe as a result of the Port Cresson massacre.
[1][2][3][4] His son Hilary R. W. Johnson was elected in 1884 as President of Liberia, the first to have been born in the country.
He later married and had one daughter, Elizabeth (born 1818), with his wife Mary Johnson.
Two of his children, Sarah (b. about 1811), and Elijah Johnson, Junior (born about 1812), were left in an orphanage in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1816.
Elijah Johnson was a member of the American Colonization Society, as was his friend Jehudi Ashmun.
Many died of malaria and yellow fever, including Johnson's wife Mary.