Many people know that one of Westfield’s claims to fame is the Johnson Organ Company, which built hundreds of pipe organs, many of which are still in use today. The founder of the company was William Allen Johnson (1816–1901) of Westfield. A lesser-known story is that William Johnson’s wife, Mary Ann Douglass Johnson, was an accomplished artist with a long career as a painter.
Mrs. Johnson kept a written record of sales of her artwork, which is preserved in the Westfield Athenaeum’s archives. The catalog spans from 1843 to 1894. In one entry, she notes that from 1856 to 1857, she completed 99 portraits—and her records show that, at the peak of her career in the 1860s and 1870s, she was earning one to two thousand dollars per year in commissions. The names of many prominent families of Westfield and surrounding towns are listed as customers. She also taught at Westfield Academy and gave private lessons.
Much of Mrs. Johnson’s work was portraiture, but she also painted local landscapes. She worked in both oils and crayon. The Athenaeum’s collection includes several of her larger canvases and a handful of smaller works. She painted portraits of 18 of the past masters of the Mount Moriah Lodge of Masons, which hung in the Masonic lodge until the building burned down in 1896. It’s possible that she painted some of the portraits that now hang in the Athenaeum’s great hall, but since she didn’t always sign her work, many are officially unattributed.
Mary Ann Douglass was born in 1821 to Henry and Mary (Wolcott) Douglass of Westfield. She attended public schools and Westfield Academy, and married William A. Johnson in 1839. They had one son, William H. Johnson. She died in 1906 and is buried in Pine Hill Cemetery.
Featured image: Mary Ann Douglass Johnson as a young woman and an old woman, along with a page from her sales ledger.
— Kat Good-Schiff, Local History Librarian
