Urbain Johnson (January 27, 1824 – April 13, 1917) was a farmer and political figure in the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

province of

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

. He represented Kent County in the

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from 1869 to 1870, from 1874 to 1882 and from 1895 to 1908 as a Liberal member. He was born and educated at

Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick Saint-Louis-de-KentWritten Saint-Louis de Kent in successive regulations defining the province's municipalities, the common form with three hyphens was normally used even by other provincial government departments. is a former village in Kent C ...

, the son of Simon Johnson and Geneviève Vautour. Johnson was a descendant of

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immigrants who had first settled among the

Acadian The Acadians (; , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, most descendants of Acadians live in either the Northern American region of Acadia, ...

s in the

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area. In 1856, he married Nathalie Leblanc. Johnson was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in an 1869 by-election held after Owen McInerney was named to the Legislative Council. Johnson was defeated in the general election which followed in 1870. He opposed the Common Schools Act which banned

religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

instruction in the province's school system based on the principle of

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. He attended the convention of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste convention in

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in 1880 and the Acadian national convention in 1881, where he suggested that the Acadians choose a different holiday and symbols from those chosen by other

French Canadians French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the provi ...

. He also was a justice of the peace and an officer in the local militia. Johnson retired from politics in 1908. He died in 1917, aged 93.

References

*
Urbain Johnson, McCord Museum of Canadian History
(French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Urbain 1824 births 1917 deaths 19th-century Canadian farmers New Brunswick Liberal Association MLAs Politicians of Acadian descent People from Kent County, New Brunswick Canadian people of Scottish descent 19th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick Farmers from New Brunswick