Jeremiah Augustus Johnson (June 3, 1836 – February 27, 1914) was an American attorney who was consul-general in Beirut when it was part of Ottoman-controlled Syria.
[1] During his career, Johnson was instrumental in arranging the receipt by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the first item they accessioned, a Roman marble sarcophagus with garlands, after J. Abdo Debbas, the American vice-consul at Tarsus, wrote to Johnson to offer the item to the U.S. government.
After meeting John Taylor Johnston and other founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was agreed that the item should be received by them.
Transit to the coast at Mersin was arranged by Debbas using a team of sixteen buffalo to pull the sarcophagus on a wagon.
[8] Their son Tristam Burges Johnson, a Navy lawyer, was killed by a bolt of lightning in 1911.