Born in Pomfret, New York; baptized along with his family in 1831; settled with the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois; called on mission to Canada and the eastern U.S. in 1840; entered into plural marriage prior to immigrating to Salt Lake Valley in 1848; settled in Summit Creek, now Santaquin, Utah, in 1852; served mission to Hawai‘i, 1852–55, laboring primarily on O‘ahu; settled in Spring Lake, Utah, where he became first bishop of Spring Lake Ward in 1877; called to help settle Mesa, Arizona, in 1882; died in Mesa. (See Conquerors of the West, 2:1260–63; MMH, biographical sketches; Johnson, My Life’s Review; LeBaron, Benjamin Franklin Johnson; Johnson diaries; GQC journal, frequent references, Mar. 1853–Aug. 1854.)