The man who would become known as Liver-Eating Johnson began his remarkable frontier saga by deserting the U. S. Navy. Born John Jeremiah Garrison on July 1, 1824, in Little York, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, he eventually transformed into a mountain man, sharpshooter, and legendary figure of the American West whose story blends documented events with enduring folklore.
Historians note that Johnson stood 6 feet 2 inches and weighed around 260 pounds, substantially larger than the average man of his era, who typically measured about 5 feet 6 inches. During the Mexican-American War, he enlisted in the Navy as a teenager despite being underage. After an incident involving an officer, the circumstances of which remain unclear, he chose to flee rather than face disciplinary action, believing he had a better chance of surviving in the wilderness than in a military prison. To avoid detection, he adopted the name John Johnson and moved far from his origins.
His imposing physique made it difficult to remain inconspicuous, so he used his size and strength working as a wood hog, supplying fuel to steamboats. After exploring shipbuilding, he eventually reached Montana Territory, drawn like many others by tales of gold during the Old West period. When the excitement of prospecting faded, Johnson recognized his true calling lay in becoming a mountain man. He sought out seasoned trapper John Hatcher, who welcomed him to his cabin along the Little Snake River in northern Colorado.
Hatcher taught him essential survival skills, including hunting with hawk and rifle, building campfires with sticks, and avoiding dangerous wildlife such as bears and rattlesnakes. Johnson also mastered trapping, gathering furs, and bartering for supplies. Around 1847, Hatcher decided to retire from the mountain man lifestyle and journeyed east, leaving Johnson to his own devices. In need of companionship, Johnson recalled a connection he had formed the previous year with the Flathead Indian tribe while traversing the Bitterroot Valley in Montana.
An assistant chief had offered his daughter in exchange for furs, which Johnson considered a fair trade. He returned to see if the offer still stood, and it did. By autumn, the couple was settled in Johnson’s cabin along the Little Snake River. In the following weeks, he prepared the cabin with enough food and supplies to last his wife through the winter, since he would need to leave her alone while trapping furs.
He taught her to use his rifle for self-defense, and she taught him her native Salish language. Unbeknownst to Johnson, she also became pregnant around that time. Confident in her safety, he left with a promise to return in the spring. When Johnson returned weeks later, he found the cabin charred and smoldering, its door standing ajar.
Inside lay the skeletal remains of his wife, who had fallen victim to the brutal winter and predatory wildlife. From the evidence, Johnson inferred she had been murdered by members of the Crow tribe. He also found a small skull beneath his wife’s rib cage, revealing she had been pregnant at the time of her death. Overcome with rage, Johnson vowed to avenge the killings and set out to hunt down those responsible.
Shortly thereafter, the bodies of scalped Crow warriors began appearing throughout the region, discovered by both tribesmen and white mountain men. The victims were not only scalped but also had their livers removed. As these gruesome findings multiplied, other mountain men concluded Johnson was on a vengeful rampage, reportedly consuming the livers of the Crow. Historians estimate Johnson killed over 300 Crow during his decade-long campaign.
The Crow chiefs, frustrated by their losses, assembled an elite group of their 20 strongest warriors to track him down. None ever returned, leading to speculation that they too fell victim to Johnson. In Crow culture, the liver is considered essential for entering the afterlife. By consuming the livers of his victims, Johnson not only ended their lives but also doomed their spirits.
His actions instilled profound fear in the Crow and created a lasting legacy of terror. Biographers Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker, in their work Crow Killer, argue that Johnson’s killing spree was fueled by a passion for murder. They recount an incident in which he allegedly poisoned and murdered 29 Blackfoot warriors using biscuits laced with strychnine as a form of amusement. One widely told legend describes Johnson’s escape from a band of Blackfoot warriors.
During a winter trek of over 500 miles to sell whiskey to the Flathead tribe, he was ambushed by the Blackfoot, who intended to sell him to the Crow. Stripped to the waist and bound with leather cords, he was left under the watch of a single warrior in a teepee. Johnson managed to free himself, incapacitated the guard, and took the guard’s knife, eventually severing his leg and smoking the flesh into jerky. He then fled into the wilderness, reaching the cabin of his trapping partner after a grueling 200-mile journey.
The West was changing during this period. The buffalo population was declining, fur trapping had ceased due to beaver depletion, and much of the large game had become scarce. Native tribes suffered devastation as their territories were seized and their people confined to reservations. After a quarter century of conflict with the Crow, Johnson and the tribe finally established peace.
The tribe embraced him as one of their own, and his long-running feud officially ended. Nevertheless, the West remained a violent and contested area during the Plains Indian Wars, with Johnson, known to the Crow as Crow Killer, facing opposition from various tribes alongside his fellow mountain men. Johnson continued the harsh lifestyle of a mountain man even after his quest for vengeance concluded, primarily hunting and trapping for sustenance while occasionally selling whiskey. In 1864, he enlisted with the Second Colorado Cavalry as a sharpshooter for the Union Army.
His earlier desertion from the Navy appears to have been either ignored or overlooked due to the Army’s urgent need for recruits. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Johnson was honorably discharged. Returning to the West, he applied his tracking skills as an army scout during the Indian Wars. He subsequently became deputy sheriff in Coulson, Montana, and Leadville, Colorado, eventually serving as town marshal of Red Lodge, Montana.
He also organized an amateur Wild West show, traveling with Calamity Jane and recounting tales of his adventures. In early 1878, the Washington Post erroneously reported Johnson’s death, portraying him as a brutal frontiersman who killed Native Americans for sport or revenge. Other newspapers adopted his infamous nickname, Liver-Eating Johnson, and described his alleged acts as grotesque cannibalism. His legend became so intertwined with violent folklore that distinguishing fact from fiction became nearly impossible.
In his later years, Johnson journeyed to California, far from his wilderness origins. The man renowned for shunning civilization spent his final days in the Los Angeles Old Soldiers Home. He died destitute on January 21, 1900, at age 76, and was interred in a military cemetery in Los Angeles, where he remained for 75 years as the city developed around him. In 1972, the film Jeremiah Johnson, starring Robert Redford, sparked renewed interest in his story.
At that time, his grave was located next to the San Diego Freeway, a stark contrast to his frontier legacy. Two years later, following a campaign initiated by a teacher and 25 seventh-grade students, Johnson’s remains were relocated to Cody, Wyoming, near the Shoshone River. His epitaph reads simply: “No more trails. ”
Throughout his life, Johnson worked as a sailor, scout, soldier, gold prospector, hunter, trapper, wood supplier, whiskey vendor, guide, deputy, constable, and log cabin builder.
He crafted his own folklore with tales that grew larger than life, representing in many ways a microcosm of the Old West itself.