The Ohio Connection

• Josephine Johnson moved with her husband, Grant Cannon, to Hamilton County, Ohio in 1947.
• In 1956 the Cannons bought thirty-seven acres of land outside Cincinnati, which they allowed to return to its natural state and preserved as an “inland island” amongst Cincinnati suburbia.
• In 1969, Josephine published The Inland Island, a book about her family’s nature preserve, peppered with her commentary on war and the state of the world. Many critics compared the work favorably to Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, and credited the book with helping to popularize ecological concerns.
• Josephine Johnson remained in Ohio until her death in 1990. Just before her death, she was living in Mount Carmel.