The Johnson Homestead in Belfast, Maine is a beautiful house just at the junction of Church and High Streets. The Johnsons owned and lived in several houses on Primrose Hill, trading occupancy as one family member died and another took his place. The Johnson’s daughter, Louise Miller Johnson Pratt, Mrs. William Veazie Pratt, lived at this house at various times and at the “Pratt House,” another Johnson family house at 100 High Street on Primrose Hill. The house photographed by Henry L. Rand in 1903 was the one at what is now 156 Church Street, but was formerly 76 Church Street. It is a graceful square two story frame house with clapboarded walls, a central front entrance and portico, four chimneys, a low hip roof and an octagonal tower. The house was built in 1801 by Thomas Whittier, complete with ballroom, and used as a tavern. It was called “the best public house in Maine.”
Edward and Georgianna Parker (Miller) Johnson lived at 178 Marlborough Street in Boston from 1891 and spent their summers in Belfast, after 1901 retiring to the “Johnson Homestead” at 156 Church Street. The house in the photographs shown in this collection is just at the place where Church Street later became High Street and the address changed depending upon the year and the agency noting the address.
See also:
“Old Houses of Belfast” by Elizabeth M. Mosher, Belfast Free Library, p. 19, 57-60, 1983.
“History of the City of Belfast in the State of Maine from its First Settlement in 1875 to 1900” by Joseph Williamson, published by Loring, Short and Harmon, 1877 and 1913.
“History of the City of Belfast in the State of Maine from its First Settlement in 1770 to 1875” by Joseph Williamson, published by Loring, Short and Harmon, 1877.
