Calvin Johnson was born a slave in 1844 to the Charles McClung family, one of the pioneer families of Knoxville, TN. Growing up Johnson tended horses on the McClung estate in neighboring Farragut, and helped popular Irishman Patrick Sullivan manage the family saloon when Sullivan was away fighting in the Civil War.
After the Civil War, Calvin Johnson and his brother collected war dead throughout Knox County for the growing Federal Veterans (Union) Cemetery. As a free man after the Civil War Johnson became one of the richest men in Tennessee. Johnson built race tracks, raised racehorses, owned a number of saloons and built a number of houses and homes downtown, including his own in which he and wife wife lived until his death at age 80. He is buried in Oddsfellows Cemetery, the "Black Cemetery" outside Knoxville where many famous Black leaders of the past were buried.