shepherdstown museum

hours are limited and on weekends the museum closes early.a lot of history in this little town.We drove from Maryland, outside DC, for a short two night getaway to this inn, recommended by several people we know. We stayed in one of the chalet suites, with the balcony facing the Potomac River.

We were on a historical walking tour of the town. The lovely lady at the Visitor's Center suggested we stop by the Museum. After about 30 stops on our tour we decided take a break and go to the Museum. What a delightful place. The docents were full of information and the upstairs exhibits were wonderfully done. Also they have a reproduction of the steam engine that Rumsey invented.

Beautifully trained docents that have first-hand knowledge about everything here. Almost, but not too much information for one day. A few magnificent hand-quilted quilts if that turns you on!

The welcoming we got when we arrived,being told about how much history was in the building.How it was used in the beginning and what led up to what it is today.

The museum is relatively small, with a limited number of artifacts, but the collections are organized in historically accurate settings and interesting ways.It you have more than a day or two in the area, it's worth a visit.

Shepherdstown is such an interesting place in the story of the young United States, and until I visited I didn't have a clear idea of the key role that it played in the spread of trade and migration into the Shenandoah Valley and the south. The museum has artifacts of the craftmanship of those early days--the Sheetz musket, for example, is a rare and remarkable piece of work by gunsmiths of the Sheetz family in Shepherdstown. The musket, together with the pottery, furniture, maps of the early town, the civil war pieces, and really, the entire museum collection, create is a poignant reminder about life on the frontier and the people whose story unfolded there. I loved it--I had planned on spending an afternoon there, but ended staying two days in order to do everything the town makes available to tourists and American history buffs. I stayed at the motel just on the outskirts of town, and walked from there into the historic district. I bird dogged back and forth through the residential areas on both sides of German street, and then took the free walking tour (it starts on a regular schedule, meet up with the guide on the sidewalk in front of the museum). To me, Shepherdstown is one of the finest authentic early American sites, with no overburden of crowds or theme-park-style commercialism.

I lived in Shepherdstown West Virginia from 1969-71. At that time it was a quiet college town that was proud of its past but did nothing to capitalize upon it. Houses and buildings were in disrepair. Still I realized that it was a 19th century Williamsburg just waiting to come alive again. Some forty years later, it has bloomed into a beautiful restored down. Its houses and buildings are picture-postcard perfect. Many of those on the main street now house specialty shops, restaurants and cafes. The Entler Hotel which was empty when I lived there now has a visitors center on one side and the Shepherdstown Museum on the other. Even though I was there at 11 am on a Sunday morning, there were plenty of people wandering the streets, filling the restaurants and dining at tables on the sidewalks. There was a steady flow of traffic moving up and down the street. I walked around the town admiring the 19th century architecture, noting the flowers and scrub around the houses and buildings, the mounting stones and hitching posts along the roadway, the old water pumps, garden sheds, and many properties even had their original stables behind them. There were several stone churches still in use. Towering over the town is the old clock spire of the original building for Shepherd University. A mill race runs through town and to the restored mill that is near the tall James Rumsey steamboat monument that overlooks the Potomac River. The town is a living, breathing 19th century community that is worth several hours of exploration.