He arrived with 23 enslaved people and set up a slave labor camp to produce cotton,[2] an endeavor that made him one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the state.

In 1857, his son Lycurgus Johnson, a successful operator of his own slave labor camp, acquired the title to Lakeport.

The plantation was highly profitable as cotton prices increased with European demand, though the Civil War took a toll on Johnson's fortunes.

[8] Tax records show that by 1864 the number of people enslaved at Lakeport had declined to 24, as many former slaves fled after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Lycurgus worked closely with the Bureau and negotiated wages for the no-longer-enslaved people to labor on his plantation and continue to grow cotton.

Some of the restored parts were the doors, floorcloth, mantel, rose window in the attic, and the smokehouse in the back of the property.