[1] Johnson had eight siblings, four brother and four sisters, including Caroline, Charlotte, William, Julia, Oliver, and Mary.

[2] Johnson was educated at Prof. William Wells' School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and early in life showed a great fondness for literature.

[3] In 1869, a severe freshet in northern New Hampshire carried away in ten minutes all the lumber mills of Colonel Johnson, destroying his chief income.

In this way, she became connected with many new papers, the Prairie Farmer of Chicago, the Horticulturist, Hearth and Home, Independent and Tribune of New York City, and the Saturday Evening Journal, of Philadelphia.

She wrote thousands of newspaper articles, and her published books are Every Woman Her Own Flower Gardener, A Manual of Etiquette (Putnam's), and Household Hints and Recipes.