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1 Utah L. Rev. 7 (1949)
Judge Tillman D. Johnson

handle is hein.journals/utahlr1 and id is 11 raw text is: Judge Tiliman D. Johnson
James A. Howell
His record is at once the cause' for our praise and his own best
reward.
A short time before his- appointment as District Judge of the United
States for the District of Utah, Tillman D. Johnson furnished the
biographical data of his life to appear in a publication called the History
of the Bench and Bar of Utah, so that whether he exact language is
his or not, it is factually an autobiograph up to that time. It reads as
follows:
TILLMAN DAVIS JOHNSON
Residence, 520 23rd Street; office First National Bank Building, Ogden.
Born January 8, 1858, in Tennessee, Son of C. M. and Catherine (Davis)
Johnson. Married July 27, 1881, to Fanny McCall. of Tennessee Graduated
from Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee, 1880; studied law. in* offices
of Avent & Avent, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Admitted to the bar of Utah
at Ogden, 1890. Engaged in the general practice of law in Ogden since
1890. In 1911 formed partnership with his son, Wade M. Johnson, under
the firm name of Johnson & Johnson, which continues to date. Had charge
of Government Indian Schools at Fort Bennett, S. D., and later at Fort Hall,
Idaho, 1886-9. Member of Utah Legislature, 1899. Democratic candidate for
Congress, 1912. Member of W.O.W., Utah State and Weber County Bar
Associations. Democrat.*
True it is, this is a mere skeleton of the facts of the life of'Judge
Johnson, which must be clothed with flesh and blood that we may have
a clear picture of the man he is. The facts, however, at least suffice to
place him in the proper period of the history of the development of the
law and lawyers in Utah.
He is not of the first, but of the second period in that development.
To the first period belong those giants of the Pioneer Days, who con-
cealed their lack of knowledge of the fundamental principles of the law
by an awe inspiring use of forensics, so that they seemed to the public
to be great men, as indeed, they were, though the soundness of their law
might well be questioned. On the contrary, Judge Johnson is of that
second period, when the men who constituted the Bar in Utah were well
trained in the law. They were not, as a rule, graduates of any law
school, as is the case with practically all of -the lawyers today, which
I shall term the third period of the lawyers of Utah. They were usually
graduates of some sort of college, as was the case with Judge Johnson,
in other words, educated in the Arts, but their training in the law was
obtained in practical work in'some law office under the tutelage of an
experienced lawyer, as was also the case with him. They generally
entered upon the practice of law through some other profession or
business, usiqlly the teaching profession, as was true of. Judge Johnson,
whose preliminary training in the law was the teaching of Indian youth,
*History of the Bench and Bar oF -ftab, published by Interstate Press Association
(1913).

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