North Country at Work: Alexandria Bay's Roy Johnson - a North Country renaissance man

Like many people in the North Country, Roy Johnson had multiple jobs. His son David Johnson calls him “a working fool.” Growing up around...

Like many people in the North Country, Roy Johnson had multiple jobs. His son David Johnson calls him “a working fool.” Growing up around Alexandria Bay in the sixties and seventies, David watched his father ply his trade as the region’s “preacher-trapper,” and even got to help Roy with his third profession, “flag cutting.”

Ned HallahanAlexandria Bay's Roy Johnson - a North Country renaissance man

A large wall of muskrat pelts trapped by Roy Johnson. Johnson was known as the “preacher-trapper” because he worked as both. Circa 1979. Philadelphia, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
A large wall of muskrat pelts trapped by Roy Johnson. Johnson was known as the “preacher-trapper” because he worked as both. Circa 1979. Philadelphia, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson

Flag Cutting

As David tells it, “this is an art that is long since gone.” Flag cutters like Roy Johnson would go into swamps and harvest the green leaf of the cattail. They dove under the water, cutting the flags at their base. Upon resurfacing, the flag cutter would have a bundle of leaves which they could resell.

“This is an art that is long since gone.”

According to David, cattails produce two valuable products; the natural “glue” from the stem of the plant, and the leaves of the plant. Roy sold both. Initially, he would harvest cattails to sell the plants glue. After it was dried out, his buyers would use it to insulate and seal pickle and wine barrels. Soon, Roy realized that he could make money selling the leaves as well. To maximize his harvest, he enlisted his oldest daughter and David to help.

“There was no air in the swamp.”

David confessed that he would rather be working his other job, spending long day mowing hay, than accompany his father into the swamps to harvest cattails. Armed with only his muck boots and a long knife, David would wade five hundred to six hundred feet from shore in search of the cattails. With water up to his knees, he kept a sharp eye for the swamps’ many hazards.

“If you made a mistake you would look for the closest water and go down… I don’t care”

There were snakes in the swamp, but what scared David the most were the bees. They were impossible to avoid. Working in the swamp, “it was when you got stung not if you got stung." If he made a mistake, he would dive under the water to avoid the bee’s stings. Inevitably, David wouldn’t be fast enough to escape them. He soothed the pain from the bees' stings with mud he found in the swamp by smearing it over them. Then, he got back to working.

Siblings Dave & Elaine Johnson spreading out chair flag, the green leaf of cattail, out to dry. The chair flag was the green leaf of cattail, which they sold to the Hitchcock Company for making the bottom of seats. 1976. Three miles north of Redwood, a hamlet in the town of Alexandria, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
Siblings Dave & Elaine Johnson spreading out chair flag, the green leaf of cattail, out to dry. The chair flag was the green leaf of cattail, which they sold to the Hitchcock Company for making the bottom of seats. 1976. Three miles north of Redwood, a hamlet in the town of Alexandria, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
Roy C. Johnson is in the process of checking a chair flag, curing it and making sure it’s dry. “Chair flag” is a local term for the green leaf of the cattail,  which are dried and twisted into ropes of rush that were/are used in furniture-making for the bottom of chair seats, often referred to as rush seats. Circa 1975. Three miles north of Redwood, a hamlet in the Town of Alexandria, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
Roy C. Johnson is in the process of checking a chair flag, curing it and making sure it’s dry. “Chair flag” is a local term for the green leaf of the cattail, which are dried and twisted into ropes of rush that were/are used in furniture-making for the bottom of chair seats, often referred to as rush seats. Circa 1975. Three miles north of Redwood, a hamlet in the Town of Alexandria, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson

“That’s what you did all summer long”

Despite the perils of their workplace, the Johnson Family flag cutting enterprise was incredibly prolific. David and his sister would help Roy harvest thirty to forty bundles of cattail leaves a day. Directly from the swamp, each bundle would weigh around thirty-five pounds. The Johnson’s would place their bundles on homemade racks which they would then tie to an old car top for transport.

“Curing the flag properly is everything, so many things can go wrong to say the least.”

From there, they brought their harvest to a piece of flat, sandy, land on the side of route 37. Drying the cattails was a delicate process. If done properly, bundles that originally weighed 35 pounds would weigh only 13 after drying. Roy stored the dried-out bundles at the Old Pierce Farm. Thereupon, they would ship the bundles to the Hitchcock Company in Connecticut. The Hitchcock Company used the cattail leaves that Roy harvested to make rush bottom canoe seats. To make the seats, the company would put the leaves through a special solution and then twist the processed leaves into shape.

“It was a way for him to make his living.”

David still has one of the Hitchcock Company’s seats. He can almost guarantee that his family supplied the material that was used to make it. Once his father became established selling cattails, the Johnson family produced over ten tons of dried out bundles in a summer. Not only that, the Hitchcock Company and other buyers always tried to use Roy Johnson’s product because it was known to excellent in quality. David says that made Roy proud.

Roy C. Johnson, who was both a preacher and a trapper, posing in front of a rack of pelts, including fox, coyote, raccoon, mink, and muskrat. Circa 1970. Philadelphia, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
Roy C. Johnson, who was both a preacher and a trapper, posing in front of a rack of pelts, including fox, coyote, raccoon, mink, and muskrat. Circa 1970. Philadelphia, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
The “preacher-trapper” Roy C. Johnson, so-called because those were his two jobs, posing with the pelts of foxes he trapped. Circa 1960. Morristown, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
The “preacher-trapper” Roy C. Johnson, so-called because those were his two jobs, posing with the pelts of foxes he trapped. Circa 1960. Morristown, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson

Roy C. Johnson, who was known as the “preacher-trapper” because those were his two occupations, displaying pelts he trapped. Circa 1960. Hamlet of Brier Hill in Morristown, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson
Roy C. Johnson, who was known as the “preacher-trapper” because those were his two occupations, displaying pelts he trapped. Circa 1960. Hamlet of Brier Hill in Morristown, NY. Photo: courtesy Dave Johnson

The "Preacher-Trapper"

Remarkably, flag cutting wasn’t the only profession that Roy excelled at. David says that when Roy trapped, he never had to look for a buyer to sell his fur to; they would always come to him. Roy started trapping as a boy. He sold his first mink to Sears and Roebuck in 1942 for $43. He used that money to pay his way through seminary school. Eventually, he became a preacher.

“I can’t tell you how many lives he touched through his ministry.” 

David said people would often find Roy preaching among his peers at local trapping conventions or to his congregation at the First Congregational Church of Moorestown. Some of his writings even found a national and international audience. However, Alexandria Bay is where people remember Roy the best. David says that many people still approach him in Alexandria Bay to ask if he was Roy Johnson’s son.

“That’s where he was happiest.”

However, according to David, Roy’s love was the swamps he worked in. He kept flag-cutting until he was the only one left. The Johnson’s had to drag Roy out of swamp as he got older. Once Roy had a stent inserted to help with a heart condition, he had to stop working in the swamps for good. David said, Roy loved the swamps. “That’s where he was happiest.” As his father grew older, David and Roy would joke that David should just throw Roy’s body into a swamp when he died, because that’s where he would want to be put to rest.  All Roy had to do was pick which one.

Working Fools

Roy died in 2008. However, his legacy lives on through his family. Like his father, David is a self-described “working fool”. Over the years, he has worked in multiple professions. He purchased and has continued to own and operate multiple Jreck’s subs franchises; he has sold farm supplies; and even drives school buses.

“We didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it outta.”

David met his wife, Cindy at, work. She trained him in 1984 when he started working at the Jreck’s Sub franchise in Alexandria Bay. Soon they married. The new couple quickly made plans to purchase the sub shop where they met. They had one problem. David recalls. “We didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it outta.”

David and Cindy sold their truck and went to every bank in the North Country looking for a loan. Every bank turned them down. Luckily, they got help from family. Roy put a second mortgage on his house and the sister who had worked in the swamp with David took out a $4,000 loan on her credit card. David and Cindy bought Alexandria Bay’s Jreck’s and payed everyone back by the end of their first summer.

“I carried the dog-gone cement for the footers.”

Cindy and David worked hard. They regularly spent over 100 hours a week in their new sub shop. When Cindy was pregnant with their first child, she worked 80-hour weeks until three weeks before she was due. When the Johnson’s had to move their franchise to a new location in Alexandria Bay, David and his brother in-law built a new shop. David remembers building that shop, saying, “I carried the dog gone cement for the footers.” David and Cindy bought two more franchises but have since sold them. However, they are still running the first Jreck’s they bought in Alexandria Bay.

David says working has made him tired. However, he doesn’t want to retire. Running the sub shops with Cindy was his dream and, like his father, it is hard for him to stop his work. That passion for work connects the two, even after Roy has passed on. Roy’s memory permeates the land where David has made his home. Years ago, the two would drive the backroads of Alexandria Bay. Roy would be excited, looking for the next swamp to wade into. Today, when David drives those roads, he can’t help but look, too.

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