Thomas Johnson was born in 1732 near the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County, Maryland, one of twelve children in a planter family. He read law in Annapolis, entered the Maryland Provincial Assembly in 1762, and was from early on a man of conspicuous ability and conspicuous reluctance — someone whom the Revolution kept drafting into service against his own instinct toward private life and his ironworks in Frederick County.
On June 15, 1775, at the Second Continental Congress, Johnson rose and nominated his friend George Washington to command the Continental Army. It was one of the pivotal acts of the Revolution — and history almost immediately mislaid the credit. For 150 years the nomination was attributed to other men (President Coolidge, in a 1925 address, credited John Adams), until Delaplaine documented it definitively. Johnson organized and led Maryland's militia as a brigadier general, and in 1777 became the first Governor of Maryland, serving three terms. He and Washington were friends and business partners for years — both investors in the Potomac Company.
Washington offered him the District Court for Maryland in 1789; Johnson declined. He offered the Supreme Court in 1791; Johnson demurred, citing the crushing burden of circuit riding. Washington personally reassured him that relief was forthcoming. Johnson accepted — the Court's first recess appointment.