One special corner of Simon Johnson’s farm became familiar to many groups around Boston as “Johnson’s Grove.” There, shaded by tall pine trees, Swedish immigrants gathered in the summer to play music, dance and reminisce; churches rented it for annual picnics, and ethnic and political groups met between about 1912 and 1960.

 

Nancy Nelson of Woburn grew up in the former Scandinavian Evangelical Free Church in Woburn and remembers church picnics “for years” at Johnson’s Grove, probably into the 1940s. She described entering the parking area at the front of the Grove, near Prouty Road. They played games and ran races, but the highlight of the picnics was the baseball game in the pasture (with cows – and cow manure -- in attendance), where the married men played the single men.

 

Burlington historian John “Ed” Fogelberg, a contemporary of the Johnson children, reminisced about “Johnson’s Grove” in his newspaper column:

 

“Shortly after Simon moved into the old Prouty house he opened up the farm during the summer months as a picnic area. One field was kept mowed for use as a ball park, wooden picnic tables were set out under the trees and a large wooden open-air dance floor was constructed and the whole area on weekends became a place for an outdoor field day, a clambake, a cookout, or just a place for families or organizations to have a good time.

 

“The Greeks and the Portuguese hired the farm from time to time, but it was the Swedes who came on a regular basis, sometimes several times during the summer.... Then the beer flowed freely, young and old danced the Polka, the Hambo or the Schotish, the men held tugs of war, and everyone enjoyed the bountiful and gastronomically delightful smorgasbord.”