Both the college, and the town of Johnson are named for William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819), American jurist, statesman and educator. The town of Johnson, and a part of neighboring Cambridge, Vermont together once made up the King's College Tract, a land grant chartered by King George III in 1774 for the eventual expansion of King's College in New York, today's Columbia University. Following the Declaration of Independence, and the emergence of the Vermont Republic, the town was instead granted to William Samuel Johnson by Vermont's Council of Censors in 1782. Johnson represented Connecticut in the Continental Congress, and argued for Vermont's admission to the federal Union. He later became president of Columbia University. John Chesamore founded Johnson State College as Johnson Academy, a grammar school instructing students in Greek, Latin, algebra and geometry. In 1867 the school became a Vermont state "normal school", a term based on the French "école normale" – a school to educate teachers. Early on Johnson embraced the ideas of learning from experience, and the role of the student in directing some part of their curriculum. The college was among the first Vermont universities to introduce electives. Through the early to mid-twentieth century Johnson emerged as a college of the liberal arts and natural sciences.