29. Weis House and Pottery Kiln

NW corner of German and Duke Sts. In the early 1800s the Weis family began turning out a reddish brown pottery in a wooden house on this site. In 1815 a fire spread from the kilns behind the house and destroyed the wooden structure. The Weis’s then built the large brick house. The smaller brick structure attached to the west side of the house became a shop for the display of Weis pottery ware, now prized by collectors. Like many of the products of early artisans, examples of Weis pottery may be seen at the Historic Shepherdstown Museum.

30. Site of James Rumsey House

SW corner of where Duke (Route 480) and New Sts once intersected. The log cabin in which James Rumsey lived (1785-1788) stood on this spot where now stands a brick house built in 1860. A plaque on the side of the house identifies the site. The town’s first jailhouse, a limestone structure, stood in the middle of New Street adjacent to the Rumsey house site from 1794 to 1865.

31. New Street United Methodist Church

SW corner of New and Church Sts. The original building, constructed of wood, also stood here, but burned in 1854, leading to its replacement by the current brick structure. Differences over slavery caused a split in the Methodist Church in the antebellum era, and the Northern Methodists retained control of the building. In 1868, Southern Methodists built what is now known as the War Memorial Building on German Street. Northern and Southern Methodists reunited in 1940 at the New Street site.

32. St. Agnes Catholic Church

NW corner of Washington and Church Sts, one block south of the United Methodist Church. Dedicated in 1891 in honor of Agnes Gibson (1853-1941), a lay person who played a major role in raising funds for the building of the church. It is now the St. Agnes Chapel. On July 28, 2008, the St. Agnes congregation dedicated a striking new church edifice located at 106 South Duke Street, behind the parish house.

33. Crooked House

204 Washington St., built c. 1790 and home to the Miller family for over a century. Solomon Miller and his wife Sophia Cookus Miller were both children of Revolutionary War veterans and produced a family of artisans including weavers, carriage makers, painters, cabinet makers and needle crafters. Eleazer Hutchinson Miller was a painter of watercolors and oils, etcher, and illustrator whose work is on display at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington and at the Historic Shepherdstown museum. Mid-twentieth century owner Edmund Jennings Lee IV (great grandson of Edmund Jennings Lee, the uncle of Robert E. Lee) was born in Shepherdstown, became an Episcopal priest and spent 25 years as a missionary in China as well as several years as headmaster of Chatham Hall girls’ school in Virginia. He and his wife retired to “the Crooked House,” a name he coined.

34. Episcopal Rectory and Shepherd Burial Ground

104 W New St. The large federal style brick house, constructed in 1814, was purchased by Thomas Van Swearingen in 1815 and sold to John Baker in 1817. It has served as the rectory since 1846. The Shepherd burial ground, inside the adjacent stone walls, was established in 1776 upon the death of Thomas Shepherd and is said to contain his unmarked grave. Over thirty family members are interred here, the last in 1941. On the opposite side of the street, a boys school known as the “Salt Box School” operated in the decades before the Civil War under a New England trained schoolmaster, John Pierce.

35. Christian Clise House

100 W New St., built as a log house c. 1786 by Christian Clise, who purchased the lot from Abraham Shepherd in 1785. Clise sold the house in 1790 and moved to Lexington, Va., where he and his son built and operated an ordinary. Succeeding owners including the Cookus and McCauley families enlarged the house, adding a center hall, siding, and unique architectural details. On January 21, 1892, near the front steps, a rejected suitor shot a popular town belle. Removed to the parlor of the house (then owned by Methodist minister A.A.P. Neel), the victim died, as outraged townsmen sought the killer. Sentenced to hang by a Charles Town court, the killer was found dead in his cell before the execution. Some allege that the house is haunted by the ghosts of that long ago tragedy.

36. Community Building and Fire Hall

SE corner of King and New Sts. Built in 1912, this red brick building of Gothic design with a square steepled tower at one corner housed the fire department and served as a community building, town hall, jailhouse, basketball court, sometime movie theater, and a gathering place for church suppers, bazaars, and entertainments by various religious and civic groups. After the fire company moved to a new fire house on Route 45 in 1987, the building remained empty for a time and now is privately owned.

 

37. Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church

SW corner King and Washington Sts. Officially chartered in 1743, this is the oldest continuous congregation in town. In the early 1780s, the congregation built a log church on the corner opposite the present site and shortly thereafter replaced it with a frame building on the same site. When the frame building burned in 1831, the church traded its former lots for the current site. The structure dates from 1836. A plain red brick building, it has a belfry and cupola atop the front gable. As the largest building in town at the time of the Battle of Antietam, the church served as a primary hospital for the wounded. During much of the 19th century, across King Street on the south side of Washington and near the Town Run, a large building known as the Virginia House served as the home of the Fayman family, makers of wool and fur hats.

 

38. Stone Row

S side of E New St, between King and Princess Sts. The long two-story building has been called Stone Row for generations. Built in the early 1790s, it began as Philip Shutt’s Brewhouse. Irish workingmen building the C&O Canal in the 1830s enjoyed “Shutt’s Cream Beer.”