The work party

Several members of the Shenandoah Garden Club, Peggy Bowers (the project’s landscape architect), and several members of the Historic Shepherdstown Commission (HSC) showed up, armed with trowels, garden gloves, bug spray, and lots of enthusiasm. As Sue Guay of the Shenandoah Garden Club described it  – It was Planting Day! And they were there to put into their new home nearly one hundred perennial plants which had been purchased in a joint project between the garden club and HSC. Hydrangea, hosta, amsonia, polygonatum (Solomon’s Seal), iris, clematis, astilbe, Lenten rose, cone flower, and ferns, as well a few large shrubs, will bloom and grace these newly-refurbished gardens.

In 2008, Shenandoah Garden Club had received a $9,000 grant from the Shenandoah-Potomac Garden Council to renovate this same space at the Entler. The funding for the original project was generated by the sale of tickets to the annual House and Garden Tour that year. This generous gift made possible the renovation of the Entler Hotel flower beds; the installation of landscaping including boxwoods, ferns, fothergilla; and the enlargement of the flagstone patio. Using this grant the Historic Shepherdstown Commission was able to have the yard graded, replace plant material, define the beds, and enlarge the flagstone patio.

Many of those plants installed sixteen years ago have grown and flourished and have become a bit unruly; many have run their course and have died. The large flower bed, the centerpiece of the Entler’s patio area, now consisted of a large bed of…mulch!

The Entler Hotel needed help.

The Shenandoah Garden Club needed a “Small Project.”

The Shenandoah-Potomac Garden Council needed garden clubs to apply for an annual grant, called “Small Project Awards,” which uses funds generated from the annual House and Garden Tour to fund community beautification projects.

It was a three-way match, and luckily Shenandoah Garden Club Vice President Mary O’Hara knew about all three organizations. She contacted Susan Guay, Chair of the Club’s Project Committee, and the ball began to roll. Mary is also a member of Historic Shepherdstown and a docent at the museum. She contacted Dave Pugh,  the Vice President of  HSC, who was delighted to learn that the Entler was being considered for the grant. Ms O’Hara then called Peggy Bowers to request assistance with this project, and Ms Bowers agreed to participate. She donated a landscape plan, developed a plant list, and even drove to Pennsylvania to pick up the plants.

Meanwhile, Ms Guay waded through pages of grant application, made phone calls, wrote, re-wrote, changed, modified, and edited the paperwork. She was thrilled to find out that the application had been approved by the Council, and the project was awarded $1,000, which was matched by  Historic Shepherdstown Commission. That $2,000 purchased nearly one hundred perennial plants and shrubs.

The newly-planted perennials are now flourishing in their new, spacious beds.  Next time you are on German Street, look through the wrought iron fence next to the Entler into the garden, or better yet, visit the museum at the weekend and come in and enjoy it up close.  Historic Shepherdstown is most grateful to the Shenandoah Garden Club, in particular Mary O’Hara and Sue Guay and to Peggy Bowers for her inspired design work and plant knowledge.

The Museum will open on April 20. Hours through October will be Saturdays 11 – 5  and Sunday 1-4. Come visit our three floors of history and  items crafted by or owned by the people of Shepherdstown, from samplers to Sheetz rifles.  The Entler Hotel is a fitting location for the museum. In 1786 Philip Adam Entler, Jr. built a residence on the west side of the property. In following years, others built substantial brick buildings on the lot extending eastward from Entler’s residence to Princess Street. By 1809 Daniel Bedinger owned all of the property that became the Entler Hotel and leased it to others. For more than a century the Entler thrived. In 1912, the Entler residence on the west side of the property burned. During the 20th century the Entler briefly took the name Rumsey Hotel and then became Rumsey Hall, a college dormitory. It housed students, World War II Navy and Air Force cadets, and college faculty. This is now the 40th year of the building being the location of the Historic Shepherdstown museum. 

Have you ever wondered what artifacts are housed in the Historic Shepherdstown Museum and how it tells the story of Shepherdstown? Or, have you visited the Museum and wished you could show it off to friends who don’t live in the area? Now, you have a chance. You can preview the Museum via YouTube.

During the summer of 2022, Jessie Ramchurran, a Communication Arts major from Hood College who interned with Historic Shepherdstown Commission, completed a three-part video tour of the Museum. The tour gives an overview of each floor of the Museum, and it also highlights artifacts from several of the rooms. The tour is now available on  Historic Shepherdstown YouTube channel

The museum is housed in the historic Entler Hotel. The first floor is set up to resemble the parlor and dining area of a 19th century inn. Highlights include three tall clocks; Col. John Francis Hamtramck’s sword and West Point commission; and furniture made by Adam Link, James Shepherd and Thomas Hopkins. Visitors are then invited to tour the garden and the James Rumsey Steamboat Museum, which houses a working half-size replica of Rumsey’s steamboat. Rumsey conducted the first successful steamboat demonstration on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown on December 3, 1787. The first-floor video can be found at  HSM – First Floor Video Tour

Chronologically, the next video to watch features the third floor of the Museum, which focuses on the early-Colonial era through the late 19th century. Highlights of this floor include a 1760s plat map of Mechlenburgh (now Shepherdstown); Shepherdstown samplers, Sheetz rifles and Schindler kettles; a room dedicated to the impact of the Civil War on Shepherdstown; the importance of the Potomac River and the railroad; and maps of Shepherdstown and Jefferson County. The third-floor video can be found at  HSM – Third Floor Video Tour

Finally, view the video of the second floor of the Museum, which is mostly dedicated to the 20th century. The Traveler’s Room (purported to be the most haunted room in the Museum) features rope beds and a 19th century bathtub. Other highlights include the Small Town America room, which is dominated by an early Rural Free Delivery horse-drawn mail cart; the 20th century room which features posters from Morgan’s Grove agricultural fairs and circuses, and pictures from the Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks that were held in Shepherdstown in 2000; and the African American room, which houses exhibits related to the educational opportunities for and leisure activities of the area’s Black community. The second-floor video can be found at  HSM – Second Floor Video Tour

We hope the virtual tour will inspire you to take a trip to Shepherdstown and visit the Historic Shepherdstown Museum in person. The Museum is open Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m., from April through October and during Christmas in Shepherdstown. For more information about our museum, hours and artifacts, visit our Facebook page Historic Shepherdstown Museum Facebook or check out the digital exhibits section of this website.

1852 Map of Jefferson County before restoration

1852 Map of Jefferson County after restoration

From a run down to a practically brand-new map, it is almost like magic.

In February, Americana Corner awarded Historic Shepherdstown Commission & Museum a $7,000 grant to restore its S. Howell Brown 1852 Map of Jefferson County, Virginia. The map, which was donated by Mary Hartzell Dobbins, was considered to be in poor condition.

Americana Corner, established in 2020 by Tom Hand, is an online resource that helps organizations tell stories about America and its Revolutionary past. Hand set up a website and posts videos about Revolutionary-era Americans such as John and Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Andrew Hamilton to YouTube and Facebook. He also developed the Americana Corner Grant Program. This program provides funds to organizations to enhance a historical site, establish academic exhibits and recondition historical pieces.

“The grant we received from Americana Corner gave us the opportunity to conserve the map, and we want to thank them for it,” Donna Bertazzoni, president of Historic Shepherdstown Board of Directors, said. “The map was donated to Historic Shepherdstown Commission in the early 1990s, and for nearly 20 years, we did not have the funds to have it restored.”

The work to restore the map was done by Maria Pukownik Fine Art and Paper Restoration. It is a privately-owned art restoration center in Orrtanna, PA. Before doing the work, it developed a restoration treatment for the 19th century wall map.

This map by S. Howell Brown is subtitled “Actual Survey with Farm Limits”. It encompasses 27 Districts alongside the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers and includes accounts of Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown. It was lithographically printed on two sheets of paper, hand-colored in some areas, and coated with varnish. The map was entered into the Act of Congress in 1852 by Brown and its dimensions are 39 inches by 54 inches. Maps were seen as tools used for direction, especially in the 19th century, and this map is a prime example of that.

Before its restoration, the map was in poor condition with discoloration, dirt, dust, varnish damages, fragmentation, and some decomposition in the back of the canvas. There was also masking tape found securing the map edges to the glass frame.

The preservation and restoration process took roughly three and a half months and 10 steps. First and foremost, the frame was removed, and the map conditions were photographed. Then, the surface of the map was sealed with tissue.

“It’s a Japanese tissue that can be adhered to the front of the map with a very light glue, a water-based glue that further, later on, is easy to remove,” Maria Pukownik, chief conservator of MP Fine Art and Paper Conservation, said. Sealing the surface protects the map from any possible shifting.

Next, the backing canvas was removed for the cleaning process. Layers of fabric were laid onto the map to absorb moisture from the aqueous solution that was applied. This solution was sprayed profusely until it was completely saturated. This method was repeated in certain areas.

“You know some stains, like the stains on the map, they had to be pretreated to be able to remove them, and the process is pretty long,” Pukownik said. “You spray the water – it’s completely wet – then, the dirt comes to the surface as it’s being blotted, for as long as it is needed and until you can tell there’s no more dirt coming through.”
After this stage occurs, fractured and creased areas were filled in with matching paper pulp and tissue. Then, the map was set overnight to dry and the next day, a water-based starch glue was applied. After this application, Pukownik used reference material to restore missing pieces within the map.

“Before we put the new canvas … that same tissue is applied on the back because the map, even de-acidified and cleaned, the paper is still antique paper, fragile and could be too weak for contact with other materials,” Pukownik said. “So, we applied the same tissue, clean tissue, on the back, all over and then, followed by the fabric backing.” The fabric backing is modern cotton that was pre-washed. Then, the map was put under weights until it was fully dry.
The entirely dried map was then touched up in color and surface sealer. “The Jefferson [County] map had some weakness in color – some colors faded, original colors,” Pukownik said. “So, they needed to be touched up slightly because of the geographical borders. They were important for the map to be fully informational, so we touched it up with watercolors and at the end, everything was sealed, and the varnish was sprayed on the surface to keep it nice and stable, and it went back in the frame.”

“The work that Maria Pukownik did was so good, I jokingly asked if she had bought us a new version of the map. The before and after comparison is that striking,” Bertazzoni said.

The museum intends to open a new map exhibit in September, and the restored map will become the centerpiece. “The museum owns several maps, including what is believed to be the original plat map of Shepherdstown, as well as two other Shepherdstown maps and another map of Jefferson County,” Bertazzoni said. “We have also just received a gift of an 1883 S. Howell Brown map of Jefferson County from the Jefferson County Historical Society. It is very interesting to compare all of them and see the evolution of both the town and the county.”

The Library of Congress has the 1852 S. Howell Brown map on their website in a form that allows the viewer to zoom in to a specific location Map of Jefferson County, Virginia 1852

Jessie Ramcharran, 2022 Intern