The tale of a Russell preacher's bedraggled tail end

The Rev. John Luther Johnson (1855-1925) was pastor of Russell's Methodist church back in 1902 with appointments to preach, too, at Salem Church, west of town, and at Greenville, to the southeast, where the faithful gathered in the schoolhouse on Sundays.

It's not known which of his two rural charges he had visited that Sunday afternoon during mid-November and was headed home from when the cart he'd decided to use both for transportation and as a training exercise for a team of colts let him down --- literally.

Apparently the Rev. Mr. Johnson was the only witness to his own uncomfortable mishap, but he shared the story a few days later with Sam Greene, then editor of The Chariton Patriot --- and that's how the Reverend's rear end ended up as front-page news. 

As Methodist preachers do, the Rev. Mr. Johnson eventually was transferred to other charges and died at his retirement home in Des Moines during 1925. He's buried with his family at Indianola's I.O.O.F. Cemetery.

Here's the text of the tale of the preacher's tail as told under the headline, "Minister in a Scrape: How Rev. Johnson of Russell Did Some Good Road Work Near His Home Town" in The Patriot of Nov. 27:

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Rev. J. L. Johnson, pastor of the M.E. Church at Russell, told us a funny story on himself last Monday, and admonished us not to let it get into The Herald, but it was so ludicrous, and he is so good natured, that we cannot help letting the public enjoy it, too.

It was a runaway in which the Reverend played the central part, and it happened about ten days ago. He was returning from preaching at one of his charges, and was driving his gentle team of colts, hitched to a cart. As they were jogging along, a bolt slipped out of the body of the cart, letting the whole interior mechanism of the rig --- including the preacher, who is anything but a dwarf --- down into the road with a dull thud.

The colts were not used to hearing such evolutions progressing in their rear, so they started to run, and by the time the preacher could get his legs unwrapped from around his neck, the steeds were skimming over the hard roadway with a speed that would do credit to a race track. Considering the fact that Rev. Johnson was sitting through the bottom of the cart and was wiping the dust and hard clods off the highway every time the cart struck the earth, the colts made very credible progress.

The vocation of a road scraper naturally wore rather monotonously on the Reverend's posterior anatomy, however, and with rare presence of mind, for he still held the lines taut and spoke as reassuringly as conditions would permit to the fleeing equines, he guided them to the side of the right of way, where water stood knee deep and soft rushes still hung out against the ravages of winter. There, the sailing was more restful for the passenger, if not for the steeds, and the preacher's fevered portions, which had so lately been serving the purpose of road scraper and clod reducer, were cooled and soothed in the icy water and the muddy slush and weeds that he plowed us as he skimmed along, throwing up a spray of foaming water on either side like the prow of a Holland torpedo boat.

It must have been exhilerating, to say the least, but unfortunately, and yet fortunately we might say, the spectators were very scarce. We have no doubt that had the colts taken time to look around and see the plight of their master as he plowed with a broad beam through the muddy water, they would have laughed a genuine horse laugh and would have stopped from very laughing. But they did not turn around, and only after they had been held to their hard course in the mire and water for a considerable distance did their ardor cool, and they were finally stopped without further damage, as good home-grown colts usually are, or should be.

Rev. Johnson slowly unmixed himself from the debris and the soft oozes of black loam that encaked him, and, as he was not far from Russell, proceeded slowly homeward with the wreckage, his ministerial coat tails hiding a multitude of things. Fortunately he suffered no serious harm from the accident, and after he had burned the small portion of his breeches and nether raiment that had survived the "scrape," he laughed heartily over it.

It was indeed a very fortunate outcome of what might have been a fatal accident, and we congratulate Rev. Johnson that he can read this description of it instead of having his relatives and friends calling for extra copies of this week's Herald to read his obituary.