Iver Johnson - Iver Johnson

Iver Johnson

Iver Johnson was born in Nordfjord in the year 1841, in Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway and later emigrated from Norway to the United States. He was educated as a gunsmith in Bergen in 1857 and had a gun store in Oslo. He married Mary Elizabeth Adams (born January 1847 ) on April 9, 1868, in Worcester, with whom he had 3 sons (Frederick Iver, John Lovell, and Walter Olof) and 2 daughters (Mary Louise and Nellie).

Iver Johnson immigrated to Worcester, Massachusetts from Norway in 1863 at the height of the American Civil War, a time when gunsmithing was a welcome skill in the country. Johnson was a gunsmith by trade at the time, but also worked as an inventor in his spare time, which would come in handy later on as he sought new and creative uses for his partially idle manufacturing equipment, a thought process which would eventually lead him and his heirs to diversify the corporation's businesses. His early work involved not only gunsmithing locally in Worcester, MA, but it also included providing designs and work to other firearms companies, notably Allen & Wheelock for whom he made so-called "pepperbox" pistols.