He was described as a "quiet, bright-eyed" man,[1] a "great favorite" in Knoxville,[2] and (per the Indianapolis Recorder in 1941) he was "regarded by many as the best pastry chef in East Tennessee.

[6] William A. Johnson made national headlines in 1937 when he visited the White House at the invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave him a silver-handled cane engraved with both of their names.

Meeting Roosevelt one-on-one had been a dream of Johnson's since at least 1934, when he told a local reporter, "I feel like he's one of my kin folks, since I used to stay in the White House, too.

[8] He was born enslaved due to an antebellum American legal principle called partus sequitur ventrem, which meant that since his mother was a slave, he was one, too.

[8][9] Per Jesse J. Holland in The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House, this child received two Johnson family names.

After one of his regular lunches with Andrew Johnson's granddaughter,[c] he told a reporter in 1936: "Her own mammy and her grandmammy, too, taught me how to make pies and chicken dumplings and corn muffins.

He told a reporter a story of that era: "He was trying to keep Tennessee in the Union, and as he spoke on the capitol grounds, two shots were fired at him by secessionists.

Said the hostess would set her foot on a little lever beneath the table and ring the bell for a waiter when guest looked like he wanted something.

You see he couldn't feel his own hand.A contemporary neurologist credits William with astute observation skills and his clinically valuable description of Johnson experiencing "one of the earliest known cases" of the medical condition asomatognosia.

[26] In 1881, a visitor to Greeneville reported that "some colored people" were living in the old Andrew Johnson tailor shop and were taking good care of the building; this is likely William and his mother Dolly.

[27] In the 20th century a Greeneville newspaper stated, "Older citizens will remember the elaborately decorated and delicious cakes that occupied the place of honor at the big parties which the late Col. and Mrs. J. H. Doughty gave, which were baked by William Johnson.

[30] In the early 1900s, Johnson worked baking cakes and pies at a Tennessee business called Hattie House.

For instance, in 1923 he was present for a ceremony in which Andrew Johnson's descendants donated the President's "old tailor shop" building to the state of Tennessee.

[37]During another interview that year he recalled that Andrew Johnson once traveled overseas and visited Napoleon's redoubt at St. Helena.

The elder Johnson brought back cuttings of willows growing on the island that he planted at the house in Greeneville.

[40] By fall 1930, Johnson had left his job as a doorman and returned to cooking and baking; he prepared 5,000 donuts for the grand opening of a 24-hour coffee shop on Union Avenue, which was run by Herbert Weaver and Harry O'Neil.

[31] Apparently at some point early in the Great Depression, "it looked as if William would have to go the poorhouse" but upon hearing this news, Mrs. Weaver "threw a fit."

[44] In 1934, Herbert Weaver told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that he hoped local Democratic leaders would cooperate with him in devising a plan to introduce William A. Johnson to Franklin D.

[46] The program notes for the episode state: "A dramatic sketch presented a slave auction of early days, and later portrayed President Johnson on his deathbed, still accompanied by the faithful William Andrew.

"[46] In 1937, nationally syndicated Scripps Howard newspaper columnist Ernie Pyle visited Knoxville on his "rambling reporter" tour of America.

[19] Pyle's column likely caught the attention of White House Press Secretary Stephen Early, who thought it might be a human-interest story that could generate positive publicity for Roosevelt.

Early arranged for William Andrew Johnson to travel to Washington, D.C., to visit Roosevelt at the White House, and then "leaked" the meeting to the press.

[49] An U.S. Secret Service man (alternately described as a "G-man from Louisville, Kentucky") was sent to chaperone him and the two traveled by train to D.C.[44] "You know, my folks used to live here," Johnson told a Knoxville reporter tagging along.

[44] Johnson was then taken on a Secret Service-chaperoned tour of the U.S. Capitol, where he was introduced to Vice President John Nance Garner, the Washington Monument,[2] the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery (including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), and Mount Vernon.

"[53] Johnson was invited to be a guest on Gabriel Heatter's We the People radio show on the CBS network between Christmas and New Year's.

[56] At the time the December 30, 1937 episode aired from 6:30 to 7 p.m. on the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network,[57] William Andrew Johnson was the only Knoxvillian who had ever been interviewed on We the People.

The members of my family heard of his illness and made a trip to Knoxville to see him last Tuesday...He was quite weak at the time of our visit but he talked to us for over an hour.In 2011, local historians examining Tennessee's unique Emancipation Day traditions began researching the topic of Andrew Johnson and slavery.

Murrah eventually connected by telephone with a man in Louisville, Kentucky, named Ned Arter, who was one of Sam Johnson's great-great-grandsons.

[63] Arter was a featured speaker at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site commemoration of Tennessee's Emancipation Day on August 8, 2012.

[64] Circa 2011 there were plans to publish William Andrew Johnson's scrapbook online via the Digital Library of Appalachia.