Jake Q. Johnson House

Jake Q. Johnson House

Northwest Arkansas Times, Fayetteville Ark.
Friday, April 30

New Houses All Right, But the Old Ones
Were Built to Last; Johnson Home Has
Original Plaster, Paint and Stairs

By Billie Jines
Since there is a trend toward new houses in Northwest Arkansas, an old one of the area might be used as a yardstick by which to judge the newer houses. An example is the old Johnson house at Johnson.

Built in 1879, the Johnson house has become a familiar landmark to local residents. It has always been owned and lived in by a member of the Johnson family. The original owner was Jake Q. Johnson. His brother later moved to the house, and was in turn succeeded by one of his son's, B.B. Johnson. B.B. Johnson still lives there, and now shares the home with one of his sons and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Johnson.

Upkeep on the Johnson house is minimized by the brick walls, but even if one layer of brick should wear off, there would stand another brick wall, for the walls are four brick deep, with a thickness of one and a half feet.

"The wind has to blow mighty hard out there for us even to hear it in here," says Mrs. Johnson.

The brick were all made right there on the Johnson farm from soil found at the spot and cooked in a kiln erected for the construction of the house.

Long Time Building
Although he does not recall hearing his father say how long it took to build the house, B.B. Johnson says that he does remember that it required two years just to build the front porch. Before you criticize that point, however, take another look at that porch. It happens to be eight-inch thick slabs of solid sandstone. It took only seven to form the entire porch, although the porch lacks only a few feet being as wide as the house.

These stones were brought by mule team from a quarry located northeast of Fayetteville to be cut into identical sizes as they were laid in place. The center stone evidently had a groove or other imperfection in its flat surface for the stone cutter removed a small rectangular piece from the stone and inserted a neat "patch," cut from another stone.

The same stone cutter achieved near-perfection in the sandstone window sills, wings at the steps and the steps themselves, to say nothing of the solid stone belt course which runs completely around the house. Examine the finish on all this and the artistry achieved on the limestone base of the columns on the porch, and it is easy to see why that stonecutter proudly cut his name, M. Charles Todd, in the finished work.

Original Plaster Stands
The original plaster (still in good condition) remains on the interior walls. Those walls measure 12 feet high, and the nine foot windows require curtains 108 inches long. All of the six rooms are 16 by 16 feet, except the 16 by 18 foot kitchen.

The stonecutter and brick masons were not the only ones who left a timelessness to their work. The woodwork is as tight as new. The stairway was a mammoth project by itself. It winds in such a way as to form two complete circles before it reaches from the front entrance hall to the second story and on up to the attic. The stairs are as steady as a level floor, and the artistic design of the banisters and trim extends the full length of the stairs. The carpenters who built all this, incidentally, not only did not, possess power tools, but lacked electrical outlets to plug them into if they had owned such tools -- and they worked, not by the hour, B.B. Johnson says, but by the day at the rate of 75 cents per day.

Even the painter left his work there to stay. The intricate design of the inlaid ceiling in the living room is just as the painter left it when he climbed down off his scaffold back in 1879. Except for a couple of coats of clear varnish, it has been untouched during those years, yet the clear reds, greens, black and gold look as though they should have a "Wet Paint" sign attached.

Although the house is wired for electricity now, the job of installing switches down through the thick walls proved too much work so the Johnson's settled for pull switches. The water had gas pipes were kept to the outside as much as possible, necessitating exposed plumbing, and the bathroom was built onto the long L-shaped backporch for the same reason, since the sewer would otherwise have had to be dug through the four-foot foundation.

Mill Burns
The Johnson's mill is built as sturdily as their house, although it was constructed of wood. It was first built in 1835, but was burned during the Civil war. In 1865, when the Johnson family still lived in the small log house near the present brick residence, the mill was rebuilt. The massive timbers used as framework were hewn from solid walnut and nailed in place with hugh wooden pegs. The mill is still in operation.

Originally it was powered by a wooden over-shot water-wheel 36 feet in diameter. Water in the stream beside it is less plentiful now, so the mill is run by gas, although it is equipped to be run also by electricity or the smaller water wheel (turbine) which replaced the old one and which supplies 25 horsepower.

In the house, Mrs. Johnson, although quite proud of her home, is like any other housewife in that she notices faults. For instance, there is a noticeable shortage of clothes closets in most of the older houses, and the newer houses often contain many built-in gadgets such as ironing boards, book shelves, etc., that older ones usually lack. But it just might prove interesting sometime when you are out window-shopping for a new house to use this old one as a guide. You might, for instance, ask whether the window sills, porches and other masonry are apt to crack the crumble; if the plaster on the walls would likely need replacing in less than 75 years; whether the steps and stairs might become rickety; and then, just casually, you might glance up at the ceiling and demand to know whether you could count on the paint here to still be in good condition when the third or fourth generation moves in.

Census |Church Histories | Newspaper Columns | Biographies | Obituaries | Cemeteries | Marriages | Photos | History | Bibles | School Rolls