Born in Bethel, Vermont, he attended school at the New England Seminary in Windsor.
In 1872, he was elected principal of the State Normal School at Warrensburg, Missouri, where he remained until 1875.
[1] He was the author of Principles and Practice of Teaching, Country School-Houses: Containing Elevations, Plans, and Specifications, and many other works, was joint author of Kruesi's Drawing Books, and assisted in the preparation of Appleton's Geographies.
His Ten Great Events in History (1887) starts as follows: The great events in history are those where, upon special occasions, a man or a people have made a stand against tyranny, and have preserved or advanced freedom for the people.
Sometimes tyranny has taken the form of the oppression of the many by the few in the same nation, and sometimes it has been the oppression of a weak nation by a stronger one....Johonnot's "Ten Great Events" are the following: Johonnot's work on T.H.