AUGUSTA -- Patty Farrin sat at a table in the basement of the American Legion Hall flipping through the signed pages, each one etched with history.

On the surface, it was just a stack of plastic-covered letters. But the names of the authors, a barrage of writers from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Edith Wharton, filled the room with energy.

"Here's one by Helen Keller," Farrin said.

And regardless of which way you turned, a tangible tie to history was just waiting to be explored.

"There are books back to the 17 hundreds," said Rusty Farrin, owner of Farrin's Country Auctions. "There are newspapers from 1760. There's a real neat bunch of early architectural books."

The books, estimated to number around 4,000, are just part of the collection compiled by Ernest and Elizabeth Johnson of Monmouth during a lifetime of chasing one historically significant item after another. Upstairs at the Legion, hundreds of pieces of furniture, textiles and other rare treasures, many with ties to Maine, are being prepared to be auctioned off this weekend.

The auction begins at 10:30 a.m., Saturday and Sunday at the American Legion Hall on Route 17.

"This is one of the nicest sales I've done in quite a while," said auctioneer Rusty Farrin. "Usually, the family takes a lot of things. But this time around it didn't work out that way. It's a true estate auction."

Ernest Johnson, who died in 2000, was appointed to the position of state tax assessor in 1947 and served for the next 27 years, longer than anyone else to hold the position, according to a tribute compiled by Maine Revenue Service officials in 2001.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Northeastern School of Law, Johnson was a member of the Bar in both Maine and his native Massachusetts.

Johnson and his wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Johnson, an accountant in the then-Department of Health and Welfare, were active in various civic groups in Monmouth, including the Cumston Library, the town's museum and the historical society.

The Johnson's purchased an early 16-room, four square home on Norris Hill Road in the 1950s and began filling it with antiques and items from Maine history, said Farrin, who was called to auction off the items after Elizabeth Johnson passed away in December.

The couple's son, Ernest Henry Johson III, of Raymond, said the auction would have appealed to his parents desire to preserve history.

"It's the only way I know of finding people that will treasure (the items) the same as my parents did," he said. "It's kind of breaking the chain, but it's far more of a collection than any of the children could maintain, so I guess it's best to have it go to people that will really appreciate it and hopefully keep it the same way (his parents) did."

Some of the most unusual items have direct ties to the area, such as a small powder keg used by a Litchfield soldier during the Civil War and a ledger from a Monmouth store dating to 1825.

"They sold an awful lot of molasses back then," Farrin chuckled.

There are items of interest beyond Maine history, however.

There are toys dating back more than 100 years, and some, like a 1957 American Flier model train set that was still in the box, from more recent years.

There is furniture, such as an early four-drawer bracket base Chippendale chest, and textiles, such as a Waldoboro style hooked rug with a lion, palm trees and shields in all four corners.

"It's a wonderful, folksy thing that was probably done on some farmhouse table in Maine," Farrin said. "You don't see all that out of one house that often."

The diversity and quality of the items already has already generated a lot of buzz, Farrin said. He already had gotten calls on items listed on his Web site.

"Books and papers are a major part of history," Farrin said. "Some of this stuff, we'll never see again because it will go into an estate. I hope whoever comes and buys, enjoys this stuff as much as (the Johnsons) have over the years."

Craig Crosby--623-3811 Ext. 433

ccrosby@centralmaine.com