Departures of note

Robert Gibbon Johnson, a gentleman farmer and historian from Salem, New Jersey, is best remembered for the apocryphal story that in 1820 he publicly ate a basket of tomatoes on the steps of the Old Salem County Courthouse to demonstrate they were not poisonous. According to the legend, a crowd of about 2,000 gathered, and after he took a bite, a woman fainted, but he continued eating, proving the tomato's safety. This dramatic act, popularized in the 1940s by the Salem postmaster Joseph Sickler and later dramatized on radio, became a cornerstone of American food lore, though no contemporary evidence supports it.

Born in 1771 into a prominent Salem family, Johnson was educated at Princeton and initially planned a law career before turning to agriculture. He served in the New Jersey militia, rising to colonel, and held various public offices including county judge and state legislator. A keen horticulturist, he was president of the New Jersey Horticultural Society and wrote about farming. He also authored a history of Salem in 1839 and helped found the New Jersey Historical Society.

Johnson's personal life included two marriages and four children. He built Johnson Hall, the first Federal-style house in Salem, in 1806–07. However, his legacy is also marked by a darker episode: around 1826, Hetty Reckless, a Black woman he enslaved, escaped to Philadelphia, claiming Johnson's mother had promised her freedom and that his wife mistreated her. Johnson petitioned to reenslave her but was unsuccessful, and Reckless did not return to Salem until after his death in 1850.