The Person:
From the Wikipedia page for Thomas Johnson:
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"Thomas Johnson (July 11, 1802 – January 2, 1865) was a Methodist missionary in Kansas who founded the Shawnee Methodist Mission. It was intended to serve and convert the Shawnee, several hundred of whom had been relocated to Kansas Indian Territory from east of the Mississippi River.
Johnson was a known slave holder in Kansas and sided strongly with the pro-slavery group, at a time when it was unclear whether residents would vote to allow slavery in the territory. He was elected as a member of the Kansas territorial legislature, which temporarily designated Shawnee Mission as the state capital, 1855-1856. Johnson County, Kansas is named for him. Johnson was pro-Southern in sympathy but signed a Unionist pledge at the time of the Civil War."
Thomas Johnson is buried in a small cemetery near his mission north of the intersection of Canterbury and Shawnee Mission Parkway.
The Place:
From the Wikipedia page for Johnson County:
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"Johnson County (county code JO) is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 544,179, making it the most populous county in Kansas. Its county seat is Olathe, and its most populous city is Overland Park.
In the mid-19th century, this was part of the Shawnee Reservation after their removal from east of the Mississippi River. The people were later forced to move to Indian Territory in present-day Ottawa County, Oklahoma.
This was part of the large territory of the Osage people, who occupied lands up to present-day Saint Louis, Missouri. After Indian Removal, the United States government reserved much of this area as Indian territory for a reservation for the Shawnee people, who were relocated from east of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwest.
The Santa Fe Trail and Oregon-California Trail, which pass through nearby Independence, Missouri, also passed through the county. Johnson County was established in 1855 as one of the first counties in the newly organized Kansas Territory; it was named for American missionary Thomas Johnson. The renowned gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok settled for a time in the county, becoming constable of Monticello Township in 1858.
Johnson County was the site of many battles between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates during the period of Bleeding Kansas, prior to the residents voting on whether slavery would be allowed in the territory. In 1862 during the American Civil War, Confederate guerrillas from nearby Missouri, led by William Quantrill, raided the Johnson County communities of Olathe and Spring Hill. They killed half a dozen men and destroyed numerous homes and businesses.
The county was largely rural until the early 20th century, when housing subdivisions were developed in the northeastern portion of the county adjacent to Kansas City, Missouri. Developer J.C. Nichols spurred the boom in 1914 when he built the Mission Hills Country Club to lure upscale residents who previously had been reluctant to move from Missouri to Kansas. Suburban development continued at a steady pace until the close of World War II.
Following the war, the pace of development exploded, triggered by the return of veterans in need of housing, construction of highways that facilitated commuting from suburbs, and the pent-up demand for new housing. The US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruled that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Integration of public schools in Kansas City, Missouri resulted in many white families leaving the inner city, resulting in increased migration to the county for new housing and what were considered higher quality public schools, generally an indicator of higher economic status. From the mid-1980s the pace of growth increased significantly, with the county adding 100,000 residents each decade between the 1990 census and 2010 census."