An exchange of letters in 1962 between Johnson and Rev. L. A. Gregory, general secretary of the Baptist Conference in Ontario, shows Johnson at the age of ninety-four responding to Gregory's official inquiry about her life and ministry. On Gregory's side, there is a lightly concealed curiosity about an ordained woman whose life story intersected with his own professional path even as it remained something of a mystery. On Johnson's side there is a frank interest in the official preserving of the record. “I shall be most pleased,” she wrote, “to have you place any books or papers of my life and ministry in the McMaster Divinity College. As we older harvesters drop out there remains no authentic history of the earlier struggles. It is a cheering thought that interested younger students will always have a ready source of reference in the McMaster Divinity College library.” Gregory's assurance “that we shall remember you with affection” and his references to her “fascinating story” suggest his interest in locating Johnson within the denomination in Canada. But there were other ways in which Johnson came to recognize her own place in the unfolding and preserving of history.

One such moment came late in Johnson's Flint ministry, in a curious episode that took her back to her childhood acquaintance with Josiah Henson and the community surrounding the Dawn settlement. The events concerned one of the two gold watches that Henson and his wife received as gifts during their tour of Great Britain in 1877. On two other occasions, including the famous visit to the World Exposition in London, Henson had been welcomed in British antislavery circles. This time, in 1877, with his identification with Uncle Tom quite fixed in the public mind, he had an audience with Queen Victoria and received gifts from the Queen and others, including two gold watches.