Looking for any information on the descendants of George & Phyllis Johnson of Newport. Was a mariner of color, born in 1700s, appears on 1800 and 1810 Newport federal censuses. Left a will c1819. Wife Phyllis died c1798, has gravestone in colored section of Newport Cemetery. A sister, Sarah, lived with her daughter in New York. Son Benjamin Johnson, daughters Cynthia and Sarah. Have not been able to trace Cynthia and Sarah.

In 1816 Benjamin married Sylvia Bannister. (Sylvia may connect to Pero and/or Cato Bannister, also of Newport, slaves of John Bannister. Cato died in the Revolutionary War.) They had two surviving children, George W. Johnson (1816-1896) and Eliza Canterbury (1823-1870s). George W. married Mary Ann Perry of South Kingstown and had numerous children. Either George W. or his son, George Jr. was a minister who performed several colored marriages in South Kingstown in the late 1800s. My mother remembers there was a colored church on the family property, unfortunately the original structure was torn down in 1960 and no records to my knowledge have survived.

Some of George W.'s descendants married into mixed Narragansett/black families from Exeter. Eliza's husband Stanley was a member of the black organizations in town, like the Colored Union Church and Society, etc. Eliza's son William married a widow, Anna A. (Davis) Potter (later Michelle -- William also made her a widow in the 1870s). Any help would be greatly appreciated.