Ambrose C. Johnson and his wife Mary Abbey, both of Hamburg, came to Orchard Park about 1855, and in 1858 Ambrose entered a partnership with Charles Hewson to found Johnson and Hewson's Dry Goods at the corner of South Buffalo and East Quaker Roads. Enamored of Italianate architecture, the Johnsons built this house in 1870 and lived there for the rest of their lives. After her parents' deaths, their daughter Ava Johnson rented the house to Doctor Willard Burton Jolls and his wife Ida Markham of Cattaraugus County. A graduate of the University at Buffalo Medical School, Jolls soon opened a practice in Orchard Park, then a community of 350 residents, and in 1902 purchased the home, first using the front hall and south front room as a waiting room and office before later creating an office at the rear. His frantic efforts saved the house during the 1902 Four Corners conflagration, and the barn there replaced one lost in that fire, while a metal framework supported a windmill that pumped water for the homestead. For some 65 years Jolls served as a beloved country doctor, delivering more than 1,200 babies, serving for many years as Orchard Park Health Officer, advocating improved sanitary conditions that eventually led to the community's modern sanitation system, and writing a weekly health column for the Orchard Park Press. He also donated part of his land to the Town of Orchard Park for a new municipal building dedicated in 1949. Having no children, Willard and Ida Jolls left the house to their longtime friend and housekeeper Millie M. Michelfelder, whose estate sold it to the Town of Orchard Park in 1979. After plans for governmental use were abandoned because the building was judged unsuitable for conversion, parts of it were rented to professionals until March 1996, when it was decided to convert the entire building into a museum operated by the Orchard Park Historical Society. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the house stands as a tribute to an important part of Orchard Park's history.