Johnson was shot to death by a farmer, Harry Harris in Bogota, Illinois, in Jasper County, Illinois on November 4, 1902, while trying to collect a debt that Harris had refused to pay even after being ordered to by a court. Johnson was with a local sheriff when he was shot in the face by a shotgun and killed instantly; Harris was grabbed by the sheriff, but not before he swallowed a fatal dose of poison which he died from hours later. Johnson was interred in the Riverside City Cemetery in Newton, Illinois. In 1903, a monument of Johnson was created in Newton with former Prohibition presidential candidate John G. Woolley, former Representative George W. Fithian and national Prohibition chairman Oliver W. Stewart were at the ceremony.
