W.H.H. Murray wrote enthusiastically about Mother Johnson's establishment in Adventures in the Wilderness. "This (the Johnson's) is a 'half-way house'."
It is at the lower end of the carry, below Long Lake. Never pass it without dropping in. Here it is that you find such pancakes as are rarely met with. Here in a log-house, hospitality can be found such as might shame many a city mansion. Never shall I forget the meal that John and I ate one night at that pine table. We broke camp at 8 a.m., and reached Mother Johnson's at 11.45 p.m., having eaten nothing but a hasty lunch on the way. Stumbling up to the door amid a chorus of noises, such as only a kennel of hounds can send forth, we aroused the venerable couple, and at 1 a.m. sat down to a meal whose quantity and quality are worthy of tradition. Now, most house-keepers would have grumbled at being summoned to entertain travellers at such an unseasonable hour. Not so with Mother Johnson. Bless her soul, how her fat, good-natured face glowed with delight as she saw us empty those dishes! How her countenance shone and sides shook with laughter as she passed the smoking russet-colored cakes from her griddle to our only half-emptied plates. For some time it was a close race, and victory trembled in the balance; but at last John and I surrendered, and, dropping our knives and forks, and shoving back our chairs, we cried, in the language of another on the eve of a direr conflict, 'Hold, enough!' and the good old lady, still happy and radiant, laid down her ladle and retired from her benevolent labor to her slumbers. Never go by Mother Johnson's without tasting her pancakes, and when you leave, leave with her an extra dollar.
Yet another traveler and obvious devotee of Reverend Murray's advice, described his own experience which reveals Mother's dry and somewhat sly sense of humor:
Mother Johnson is on the Raquette, seven miles above Stony Creek. All admirers of the Rev. W.H.H. Murray, and readers of his romantic and perilous adventures in the Adirondacks, will remember his struggle with the pancakes, and Mother Johnson is the one who had the honor of providing them. We reached the house at noon, and the good-natured old lady got up a splendid dinner for us; venison that had (contrary to usual dish set before us) a juiciness and actual taste to it. Then she had a fine fish on the able.
"What kind of fish is that, Mrs. Johnson?" I inquired. "Well," she said, "they don't have no name after the 15th of September. They are good deal like trout, but it's against the law to catch trout after the fifteenth, you know."
