[2] The area that came to be known as Johnsburg was first settled in 1841, five years after the founding of McHenry County, by immigrant families escaping religious persecution and oppressive social conditions in the Eifel region of Germany, predominantly the Mayen-Koblenz."

They built their first church in 1842, a simple log cabin that also functioned as a school and meeting hall.

The first priest to serve this new congregation was delivered there by friendly Native Americans who found him lost in the woods of Wisconsin.

This church took thirteen years to complete and was the pride of the Johnsburg community until it was destroyed by a fire on February 19, 1900.

By 1990, a group of citizens living in this unincorporated area of McHenry County had come to fear that their community, known for over 100 years as Johnsburg, would be swallowed or divided by surrounding municipalities.

They turned to their neighbors in Sunnyside, an adjacent village with which they shared a library, schools, and other services, for solutions.

Four schools are part of District 12, which serves students in the Villages of Johnsburg and Ringwood and in the Pistakee Highlands.

It is a short, poignant love poem to his wife, Kathleen Brennan, who grew up in the village.

[19] The country music duo The Handsome Family (formerly of Chicago) referred to Johnsburg in the title track of their album In the Air, in the lyrics "Last night at the bridge to Johnsburg I swerved down a dead end street" and "Those wild dogs brought back that smell of falling snow and the girl who lives in Johnsburg across a bridge I cannot cross.