Here In New England: Johnson Hall Museum
There’s a man whose love of history isn’t quenched by browsing antiques shops and museums, but whose need to touch and smell and possess the stuff of the past is as real as the air he breathes. His name is Bill Johnson. You can usually find him either sitting inside a large, white-columned building set back from Route 1, about two miles before entering Wells, Maine, or roaming his 15 green acres, bordering the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Inside the building (which served from 1923 to 1940 as Elsie Libby’s Colonial Tea Room) and all along its broad porch, and strewn here and there along the land, as casually, it seems, as a child’s flung-down bicycle, rest the physical remnants of his feverish ambition to seemingly own and in some way preserve nearly every building and artifact that once touched people’s lives in years long past.
I learned about Bill Johnson, and what he calls the Johnson Hall Museum–sometimes the Johnson American Museum–from a reader who implored us on a notecard to pay a visit. She recalled touring “a wild collection” and described Bill Johnson, her tour guide, as “a wild person.” She added, “We were charmed, interested, and entertained.” When Johnson asked her what was the most interesting thing she saw there, our correspondent replied, “You!”
A quick Web search shows that the few people who have stumbled onto the place have felt similarly compelled to tell the world. “You gotta see it to believe it. Best $5 tour ever!” gushed one blogger after a visit this past May. There are photo postings by people who wandered in, not knowing what was there, and who promptly took dozens of shots, some of them strangely beautiful, of tired old buildings and rusted machinery, and curiosities such as a towering wooden moose. So off we went to find Bill Johnson.
The man responsible for collecting all of these buildings and countless hundreds of antiques and relics of cultural pop art (including Elvis memorabilia) sits contentedly in a chair inside the front door. Parked in front of the driveway is a gleaming silver 1937 LaSalle, which he soon points out is the vehicle he uses to chauffeur brides to the unique wedding reception that awaits inside.
“The best dance floor within 100 miles,” he boasts, then cautions, “You have to appreciate old junk if you rent the space. Otherwise you go down to the VFW hall.”
A sign out front indicates that “Jo Johnson, M.D. Ophthalmologist” shares the space. Another prompts, “Enjoy your pictures. $5 restoration donation. Much obliged.” The room is cool and softly lit. I find a round-faced, pleasant man, bearing a passing resemblance to the actor Anthony Hopkins. He’s hitting 71, but his gray hair hangs to his shoulders in a pigtail. It’s immediately apparent that he enjoys conversation, because “everything I have has a story.”
It’s Sunday, and he’s joined by his wife of 34 years, Dr. Jo Johnson, who’s happy to show off her office. “Most unusual waiting room in America,” Bill Johnson says. “Probably the world,” adds his wife. On a desk rests a device labeled “Complaint Department.” There’s also a pushbutton that sets off a reaction that ends with a mousetrap going off. “He entertains my patients,” Dr. Johnon says. “He’s like the cat who brings a mouse home to show you. Only it’s not a mouse he’s bringing home; it’s always something.” When patients open the bathroom door, they’re greeted by a large painting of a nude woman. Most of her patients like it, she notes: “If they don’t, they go to the other office in nearby Saco. It’s more conventional in my other office.”
Dr. Johnson is trim, with short, dark hair, and at about 5-foot-7 stands taller than her husband by nearly a forehead. She comes across immediately as having the generous spirit of a woman who loves her man and who long ago decided to do her best to make room for what he brings home, much like couples who have learned to live with one partner’s need to rescue dozens of stray cats.
“I come from a long line of paper-bag and string savers,” Bill Johnson says as we survey a packed front room–everything from Hannibal Hamlin’s campaign flag and a statue carved by Union prisoners at Andersonville, to Nantucket baskets, to photographs of Wild Bill Hickok. Each time he swings around, he plucks something to show and tell. “I’m sorry to say I have things I’ve had since I was 10 years old,” he explains. “I’ve just upgraded in quality over the years. Just the accumulation of a Yankee over the years.” He knows the story behind everything he touches, and it’s apparent that without the story there’s no joy of ownership.
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I have visited here, and it is a treasure. Not a junkyard, not an eyesore… a treasure. If he did not collect and sort and store all of these things, and know the stories behind them, who would? And who would remember them after he passes… besides those of us who love this place?