In 1842, Andrew Johnson, then a state senator from neighboring Greene County, purchased his first slave in Parrottsville, a fourteen-year-old girl named Dolly, whose son later said she had asked Johnson to buy her because she liked his looks. Johnson later bought Dolly's half-brother Sam, and in 1857 he acquired another boy, thirteen-year-old Henry. After Tennessee seceded in 1861, Johnson, by then a United States senator, remained loyal to the Union, and President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee in March 1862. Because Tennessee was considered under Union control, it was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves only in states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. Johnson nevertheless freed his own slaves on August 8, 1863, and on October 24, 1864, he issued an official proclamation declaring all Tennessee slaves free. After Dolly and Sam were liberated, they took Johnson's surname. Dolly Johnson had three children, Liz, Florence, and William, and Sam Johnson and his wife Margaret had nine children. Dolly Johnson later lived with her son William in Andrew Johnson's former tailor shop in Greeneville, where they baked and sold pies. In 1937, William Johnson met President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who presented him a silver-headed cane. Beginning in 1875, African Americans in this area observed August 8 as Emancipation Day, and the date now officially marks Tennessee's commemoration of Andrew Johnson's decision to free his Parrottsville slaves.