Johnson, Howard

Howard Deering Johnson (1897–1972), the only son of a Boston tobacconist, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, a small industrial city bordering Boston on the south. The family lived in the middle-class, seaside Wollaston neighborhood. After serving in France during World War I, Johnson returned to take over his deceased father’s failing shop. Three years later, in 1922, Johnson liquidated its assets, assumed the debt, and purchased a small corner drugstore that sold patent medicine, newspapers, tobacco, and candy. To make the business viable, he expanded the newspaper section to include a delivery service employing seventy-five boys. Then the self-professed ice cream aficionado, who consumed a cone every day of his life, turned his attention to the marble-topped soda fountain. He improved on the commercial ice creams of the day by manufacturing a product with twice the butterfat content. Different sources state that the formula was based on his mother’s recipe or one that Johnson purchased from an elderly street vendor.