Samuel Curtis Johnson, Sr., was the son of Phineas Miller Johnson and Orra Ann Collins. Johnson had deep New England roots; his great grandfather Henry Johnson married Abigail Hubbard, a great granddaughter of Rev. George Phillips, one of the founders of Watertown, Massachusetts. Johnson's immigrant ancestor Henry Johnson arrived in the Connecticut Valley from England in 1626.[1]
In 1882, Johnson moved to Racine where he became a parquet flooring salesman for the Racine Hardware Manufacturing Co. In 1886, he purchased the flooring business from the company and renamed it Johnson's Prepared Paste Wax Company. A few years later he established his own factory for manufacturing floor waxes and wood finishes. When his son, Herbert Fisk Johnson, Sr., became a partner in 1906, the firm was renamed S. C. Johnson & Son.[2]
^Commemorative Biographical Record of Prominent and Representative Men of Racine and Kenosha Counties, Wisconsin: Containing Biographical Sketches of Business and Professional Men and of Many of the Early Settled Families. JH Beers & Co., 1906, page 200
