Dear Historic Shepherdstown Members and Supporters,

We hope you have been having a good summer. It is hard to believe it is already the middle of August and schools across the county, including Shepherd University, will be starting again on Monday. Watch out for those school buses!

Historic Shepherdstown has two important events scheduled during the first full week of September, the annual meeting and September Speaker Series on Wednesday, Sept. 6, and the Fall Fundraiser on Saturday, Sept. 9.

Fall Fundraiser

Even though the Fall Fundraiser will be held after the annual meeting, I am going to mention it first because the deadline to RSVP is August 30.

This year the event will be held at the historic Shepherd Grist Mill on High Street in Shepherdstown. Parking will be available at the Shepherd University lot at the corner of High and Princess streets. There is no home football game that day.

Our hosts will be Sharon and Adam Thomas, the owners of the mill. They are hoping to run the 40-foot water wheel for a while at the beginning of the event, which is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. They have invited HSC guests to tour the lower level of their home, where the workings for the grist mill are located, as well as the first floor and back porch. You get a great view of Town Run from the back porch.

The event will be catered by MJ’s on German DeliCafe. We have selected a luau theme, and the menu will include pulled pork with Hawaiian rolls and slaw; Polynesian grilled chicken; Hawaiian style macaroni salad, citrus spinach salad, and pineapple upside down cake.

Make sure you bring along some cash or your checkbook. Once again, we will be offering a 50/50 raffle. We will be selling the new 2023 Historic Shepherdstown ornament, which features Christ Reform Church, and the 2021 ornament of the Shepherd Grist Mill. We also have discovered a cache of Diana Suttenfield prints and cards that she did for Friends of the Riverfront. She has given us permission to sell them. You won’t want to miss this opportunity.

We hope to see many of you there. And if you can’t make it, we would appreciate it if you would still make a donation to Historic Shepherdstown.

Annual meeting and September Speaker Series

Historic Shepherdstown Commission’s annual meeting and September Speaker Series will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education on the Shepherd University campus. The annual meeting will begin at 6:45 p.m., followed immediately by the speaker series talk.

At the annual meeting, HSC members will be voting on the nominations of three well-qualified people to join the board of Historic Shepherdstown, and three current members who have agreed to serve a second three-year term.

The nominees, in alphabetical order, are:

Greg Coble: A Shepherdstown resident since April 2022, Greg devoted most of his career to mission-based nonprofit organizations. He worked at the Washington-based National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization focused on saving historic resources and communities, for 30 years, in a range of positions including finance, strategic planning, human resources, chief of staff, and program development. For 18 of those years, he served as senior vice president of business and finance. More recently, he worked at Hosteling International USA (HI USA) for nine years as senior vice president of finance and administration.

Greg began his career working for the West Virginia Governor’s Office of Economic & Community Development, and also worked at Blue Cross of California in Oakland for two years. A Charleston, WV native, he has a bachelor’s in journalism and master’s in public administration from West Virginia University. He has served on the boards of Bonnet House (the Fort Lauderdale, FL historic house museum), International Student House of Washington, D.C., and Historic Hotels of America. He joined the board of the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia in June 2023.

Mike Nickerson: Dr. Mike Nickerson holds a doctorate in molecular medicine from the George Washington University and conducted cancer genetics research for 30 years. He is the current president of the Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association. SBPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the site of the noted Civil War battle in Shepherdstown. His wife Dr. Rosemary Nickerson is a long- time board member of the Shepherdstown Library. The Nickersons have a farm off Trough Road.

Dave Pugh: David C. Pugh Jr. is a retired educator for Jefferson County Schools, having taught social studies at Jefferson High School from 1975-2006, and then mentoring new teachers for an additional five years. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and raised in Carlisle, he attended Shippensburg University earning a Bachelor of Science in secondary education and a Master of Science in social science. He and his wife Jean Anne have lived in the immediate Shepherdstown area for 47 years.

From 2006-2008, Dave served on the Shepherdstown Community Club board (formerly the Men’s Club) as vice-president and chair of the Morgan’s Grove Park Committee. In 2021, he completed his second three-year term on the board of Historic Shepherdstown Commission serving as chair of the program committee and chair of the membership committee. Finally, most recently, Dave served on the board of the American Conservation Film Festival during its successful live return to the Shepherdstown Opera House in March of this year.

The three current board members who have agreed to seek re-election to a second three-year term are Terry Fulton, John Kavaliunas, and Dianne Roman. Terry and Dianne are both members of the museum committee, and have devoted a significant amount of time during the past three years working on organizing the Historic Shepherdstown archives. John is the current chair of the Museum Committee and also serves on the executive committee for HSC. He received a West Virginia History Hero award this year.

Following the annual meeting, Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst will give a talk entitled Loyalist rising and conspiracy in the Potomac borderlands before Yorktown. Bankhurst is the Ray and Madeline Johnston Chair in American History and Associate Professor of History at Shepherd University. He completed his graduate study at King’s College London. His research focuses on migration to the Appalachian frontier in the colonial and revolutionary periods.

Before joining the History Department at Shepherd, he held teaching and research appointments at the London School of Economics; the Institute of Historical Research; and Queen Mary, University of London. His articles have appeared in journals include Eire/Ireland, The Pennsylvania Magazine for History and Biography, and the Journal of Irish and Scottish History, among others. The American Council for Irish Studies awarded his first book Ulster Presbyterians and the Scots Irish Diaspora, 1750-1764 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) the Donald Murphy Prize. Bankhurst co-edited a collection of essays alongside Nigel Aston entitled Negotiating Toleration, Protestant Dissent and the Hanoverian Succession (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Bankhurst is the co-director, alongside Dr. Kyle Roberts of the Congregational Library and Archives in Boston, of the Maryland Loyalism Project, a public archive and database documenting the experiences of Chesapeake loyalists in the era of the American Revolution.

Check out the Historic Shepherdstown website for coming events and digital exhibits

Not sure when the museum is open? Want to find out about the Adam Link desk or Craft clocks? Check the website of Historic Shepherdstown, Historic Shepherdstown , for museum hours, upcoming events, and much more. The Research tab lists several items including Digital Exhibits. Here you will find illustrations and information about:

• Artifacts, such as the Adam Link desk, the Baptismal font made by Samuel P. Humrickhouse of Shepherdstown, which HSC recently acquired from the former Christ Reformed Church, as well as several fine clocks made by Jacob Craft and John Woltz of Shepherdstown. The museum also has a collection of silver spoons made by John Woltz.
• Books, including the diary of C.M. Entler for 1852 and the logbook of Henry Bedinger, Continental Army private, store keeper, postmaster, and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
• Events, ranging from the War of 1812 and the Civil War to the Israeli/Syrian peace talks conducted in the Shepherdstown area in 2000.
• Landmarks, including McMurran Clock Tower, the Rumsey Monument, the James Rumsey Steamboat Museum, and the Shindler House.
• Maps, including the maps that are currently on display in the museum. They range from the 1612 – Map of Virginia by John Smith to the Lori Simmons, 2007 Explorer Map of Jefferson County. One of the more interesting maps is the 1861 Map of Virginia Showing the distribution of its Slave Population from the Census of 1860.
• People, including members of prominent Shepherdstown families as well as such individuals as the Rev. John Kehler, Mary Catherine Weltzheimer, Alexander R. Boteler, and the cabinetmaker/undertaker Thomas (“Tommy”) Hopkins. Hopkins, for example, insisted on measuring the corpses in his mortuary after an assistant used a corn stalk to measure a body and then allowed a horse to bite a piece off, resulting in a too short coffin.

So, when it is too hot to go outside, spend some time checking out our website and in particular the section on digital exhibits: Historic Shepherdstown digital-exhibits.

My term as the president of the Historic Shepherdstown Board of Directors ends on October 4, and Jerry Bock, the current vice president, will be nominated for president. It has been a pleasure working with everyone involved in the organization for the past six years, including members of the Board of Directors, past and present, volunteers, and the HSC administrator Teresa McLaughlin. I hope to see you at the annual meeting and the fall fundraiser so I can thank you, our members and supporters, as well.

Best,

Donna Bertazzoni
President, HSC Board of Directors

Dear Historic Shepherdstown Members and Supporters, Historic Shepherdstown is excited to share some good news with our members and supporters. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Historic Shepherdstown Museum, and we are delighted to announce that we are opening a new exhibit; John Kavaliunas, the chair of our Museum Committee, has been named a West Virginia History Hero; and we have received a grant from Volunteer West Virginia to update our training materials for volunteers and docents. 40th Anniversary Celebration The Historic Shepherdstown Museum will kick off its 40th year on Saturday, April 15, when the Museum reopens to the public. The highlight of the year will be a new exhibit entitled “Great Dreams: Maps of Shepherdstown and Jefferson County from the 17th through the 21st Century.” The exhibit includes several original maps owned by the Museum, including what is believed to be Thomas Shepherd’s original plat map of Mecklenburg, both an 1852 and an 1883 Map of Jefferson County by S. Howell Brown, an 1890 plat map of Shepherdstown by S.E. Humrickhouse, and a 1920s Shaw and Whitmer map of Jefferson County. In addition, the exhibit includes maps that show the evolution of Jefferson County, several Civil War-era maps, and an aerial map that outlines the Historic District of Shepherdstown. The exhibit is located on the third floor of the Museum. Thanks must be extended to Americana Corner for funding the restoration of the 1852 S. Howell Brown map, the reproduction of several maps from the Library of Congress map database, and the signage for the exhibit. We also need to thank the Jefferson County Historical Society for donating an original copy of S. Howell Brown’s 1883 map of Jefferson County. That map is being conserved, and we expect it to be in place by the time the Museum opens. For our celebration, we are also assembling an exhibit of photographs that highlight the Historic Entler Hotel, including its restoration by local residents after it was turned over to Shepherdstown by the West Virginia legislature. Stay tuned for other 40th anniversary-themed events. History Hero John Kavaliunas, a long-time member of the Historic Shepherdstown Board of Directors and the current chair of our Museum Committee, has been named a 2023 West Virginia History Hero. Historic Shepherdstown Commission nominated John for the award because of his dedication to the Museum. John is always on the lookout for new Shepherdstown-related acquisitions. He also was the driving force behind our new map exhibit. He researched early maps of the area, selected those that best told the story of Shepherdstown and Jefferson County, and wrote many of the descriptions that accompany the maps. John received his award in Charleston on Feb. 23, from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. Congratulations John! Volunteer West Virginia grant and call for volunteers Historic Shepherdstown was recently notified that we have received a grant of more than $6,000 from Volunteer West Virginia to update our volunteer training materials. We plan to use the funds to develop a new docent handbook with information about important artifacts within the Museum. We will share the handbooks with current and new docents as well as with new members of the Board of Directors. In addition, we will be looking at best practices for recruiting and retaining volunteers, including for the Board, committees, and docents. Thanks to our grants committee – Frances Bernstein and Claudia Dressler – and our vice president Jerry Bock for writing and submitting the grant proposal. Historic Shepherdstown welcomes volunteers to serve as Museum docents, members of the various Board committees, and as members of the Board of Directors. Docents commit to volunteering for two to three hours a month while the Museum is open. Board members are elected in September and commit to attending six board meetings, a strategic planning meeting, the annual meeting in September, and to serving on committees. If you don’t have time to serve as a docent or on the board but are still interested in volunteering, we also have a number of committees that support our organization, including for the Museum, the Entler building and grounds, grants, marketing, and events. Anyone who is interested in volunteering can contact us at [email protected], or by calling 304-876-0910. Annual membership drive HSC is holding its annual membership drive. We depend on the support of our members to fulfill our mission to tell the story of Shepherdstown, and to help us maintain the historic Entler Hotel complex and the Historic Shepherdstown Museum. We welcome new and renewing members. You can mail your membership contribution to Historic Shepherdstown Commission, PO Box 1786, Shepherdstown, WV, or join through our website, www.historicshepherdstown.com. Select “Support” from the menu at the top of the page and then “Join or Renew” from the drop-down menu. George Tyler Moore Center news Dr. Jim Broomall, the director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, is now a member of the Historic Shepherdstown Board of Directors. The center will be featuring Dr. Emilie Amt, professor emerita of history from Hood College, on Thursday, March 2, at the Byrd Center at Shepherd University. In her lecture, “Black Antietam: Searching for African American Civil War History,” Amt will talk about the hundreds of Black civilians, both enslaved and free, who lived on and around the battlefield at Antietam. Amt will cover how they experienced the war and the battle, how they reconstructed their lives afterward, what America’s bloodiest day and the Emancipation Proclamation meant to them, and how their memories of this pivotal event were preserved or erased. The 7 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public. Finally, save the date. Members will be receiving an invitation to the Spring Opening Reception, scheduled for April 21. Keep an eye out for it and thank you for continued support. Donna M. Bertazzoni President, HSC Board of Directors

Dear Historic Shepherdstown Commission Members and Supporters,

It is hard to believe that in just a few weeks, September will be here. It’s been a busy summer at Historic Shepherdstown Commission and Museum, and we have a lot to share with you.

Our annual meeting and Speaker Series talk will be held the first Wednesday in September. We will be voting on nominees for the Board of Directors and a bylaw change. We have received a donation of an S. Howell Brown 1883 map from the Jefferson County Historical Society, which will be part of a new map exhibit opening this fall; we have begun a new monthly exhibit, the Shepherdstown Antique Display; reenactors will be at the Museum on Saturday, Sept. 17, to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam; this month we are saying goodbye to our summer intern Jessie Ramcharran; and finally, we are among the finalists for “Best Museum” in The Journal’s annual Best of the Best Reader’s Choice Award.

Annual Meeting and Speaker Series

The annual meeting of Historic Shepherdstown Commission will be held on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at 6:45 p.m. The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University. It will be followed by the September Speaker Series talk, given by Dr. Keith Alexander, associate professor of history at Shepherd University. To facilitate voting, the meeting will be in-person only. However, the Speaker Series talk will be available on Zoom. To request a Zoom link, please email us at [email protected], or call the office at 304-876-0910.

Board Nominees

The HSC Board of Directors has nominated four well-qualified people to join our board. In addition, three current members have agreed to serve a second three-year term. Board members will be officially approved at the meeting.

The new nominees, in alphabetical order, are:

Dr. Jim Broomall: Dr. Broomall is the director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University, where he also serves as an associate professor of history. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville in 2011, where he worked under Prof. William A. Link, whose family is from the Shepherdstown area. Dr. Broomall has developed courses, conferences, and programs of interpretation focusing on the experiences of civilians, soldiers, and slaves during the mid-Nineteenth Century. His scholarship is dedicated to the Civil War-era. He most recently published Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers as part of the University of North Carolina Press’s Civil War America series.

Yocencia Deal: Ms. Deal has been the Associate Vice President for Document Services at the American Public University System since 2018. She has a strong background in admissions administration, data analysis, and personnel management. In her current position at APUS, she has overall responsibility for providing leadership, management, and supervision for student record processes, systems, personnel, student needs, and for fostering institutional development. Prior to taking on that role, she was the Associate Vice President for International and Graduate Admissions, where she enabled the university to increase its graduate, international and corporate student populations, while ensuring student satisfaction and a smooth enrollment process. She holds a Master’s in Management from APUS and a Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education from James Madison University.

Claudia Dressler: Ms. Dressler currently works with Fellowship Square Foundation. She is the liaison for board members, donors and volunteers; creates the budget for the administration department; organizes board and committee meetings; oversees events for the organization, and manages relationships with vendors, volunteers and other partners. She has more than 10 years of experience working in advancement. She is experienced with organizing annual campaigns and writing grants. She holds a Master’s in Arts Management from Claremont Graduate University and Bachelor’s degrees in Art History and in Religious Studies from the University of California, Riverside.

Stephanie Unger: Ms. Unger is a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Shepherdstown Middle School. She joined the Jefferson County school system in 2000 as a fifth-grade teacher at Shepherdstown Elementary School, but her love for teaching history prompted her to move to the middle school, where she has taught for the past 13 years. In addition to teaching, she and her husband and another partner own the production company Earth Vibe Production and Events. For 10 years, they produced the Panhandle Earth Day Celebration at Morgan’s Grove Park. Now they focus primarily on local musical events, providing stage, sound and lighting. She holds a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Shepherd University, and she is looking forward to connecting the middle school with The Historic Shepherdstown Museum.

In addition, three current board members have agreed to serve a second three-year term. They are current treasurer Wendy Beckner, current secretary Anne D’Alauro, and Al Levitan, the co-chair of the Building Committee.

Bylaw change

The HSC Board of Directors has approved the following change to the organization’s bylaws. It would amend Article II Section B to reduce the required number of HSC Board of Directors members from between 13 and 17 to between 11 and 17. The change must now be approved by the membership of HSC.

Current Bylaw:

Article II
B. The Board of Directors shall be comprised of no less than thirteen (13) and no more than 17 voting members (current 2009 board composition is grandfathered in). The regular term of office of members shall be three (3) years, beginning immediately following the Annual Meeting in September and shall continue until September 30 of the third year following. The election of Board members shall be such that the terms of not more than five (5) members shall expire in any year. (As amended 9/16/2009)

Proposed bylaw change:

Article II
B. The Board of Directors shall be comprised of no less than eleven (11) and no more than 17 voting members. The regular term of office of members shall be three (3) years, beginning immediately following the Annual Meeting in September and shall continue until September 30 of the third year following. The election of Board members shall be such that the terms of not more than five (5) members shall expire in any year.

Speaker Series Talk

Immediately after the annual meeting, Dr. Keith Alexander will give the September Speaker Series talk. It is entitled Living Libraries: Using Oral History to Preserve the Past. Dr. Alexander’s talk is being given in association with The Historic Shepherdstown Museum’s new exhibit: Educational Opportunities for Black Jefferson County Resident Before and After Brown v. Board of Education.

Dr. Alexander will discuss the importance of oral history as a means to learn about and understand significant historical events. According to the Oral History Association, “Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.” It provides a different perspective on history from what is found in traditional print sources, and it is often used with marginalized communities.

Dr. Alexander’s students conducted the interviews that are featured in the new Museum exhibit. The people interviewed were suggested by HSC and Jefferson County’s Black History Preservation Society. Copies of the recordings and transcripts, which the students transcribed themselves, are housed in the HSC archives. The exhibit and talk are being presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations do not necessarily represent those of the West Virginia Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Map donation and exhibit

The Jefferson County Historic Society has donated a copy of S. Howell Brown’s 1883 Map of Jefferson County West Virginia to The Historic Shepherdstown Museum. In addition, the Jefferson County Landmarks Commission has provided us with a reproduction of the 1809 Charles Varle map of Frederick, Berkeley & Jefferson Counties in the State of Virginia. We want to thank both organizations for their generous donations. Both maps will be part of a new exhibit featuring maps of Shepherdstown and Jefferson County, which will open in the Museum this fall. The impetus for the new exhibit was the restoration of the Museum’s S. Howell Brown 1852 Map of Jefferson County Virginia. HSC received a grant from Americana Corner this winter to restore and conserve the map.

The exhibit will include maps in the Museum’s collection as well as maps made available by The Library of Congress, the American Battlefield Trust, the Jefferson County Assessor’s Office and the Jefferson County GIS/Addressing Office. The exhibit is expected to open in September, and remain in place through 2023. Stay tuned for more information about the exhibit and the exact opening date.

Shepherdstown Antique Exhibit

The Shepherdstown Antique Exhibit by The Historic Shepherdstown Museum is an opportunity for local residents to display their artifacts in the Museum. We will have a rotation of displayers each month depending on the number of volunteers. A table will be set up in the Museum for participants to display items during regular Museum hours. Some of the artifacts you display must have a direct connection to Shepherdstown. Items that may be of interest include old objects found around the house or yard, family heirlooms, family letters, historic documents, books, pottery, everyday household tools, etc.

The inspiration for The Shepherdstown Antique Exhibit is an article in the Shepherdstown Register in 1922 that described local residents getting together to show others their antiques. The Museum is seeking volunteers who are willing to display and talk about their items of interest to Museum visitors. If you are interested, please contact HSC at 304-876-0910 or by email at [email protected].

Reenactors at the Museum

Saturday, September 17, marks the 160^th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. To commemorate the anniversary, The Historic Shepherdstown Museum will host reenactors that day. The reenactors will be both in front of and in the garden of the Museum. Stop by and ask questions about what life was like as a soldier. And when you’re done, head inside and check out the Museum’s exhibit about the Civil War, “Voices from the Storm: The War as Shepherdstown Saw It”. The exhibit tells the story of the Civil War as it was experienced by residents and soldiers from the area. The Museum is open Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m.

Good luck, Jessie

HSC’s Board of Directors wants to wish our summer intern Jessie Ramcharran the best of luck as she returns for her senior year at Hood College. Jessie is a Communication Arts major, and she put her talent to work this summer on several projects. She wrote blog posts about the conservation and restoration of the S. Howell Brown 1852 Map of Jefferson County Virginia, and two new Museum acquisitions, a doll from 1832 that belonged to Virginia Blackford Engle, and a quilt made by Sarah Moler for her son Raleigh when he married Virginia Engle’s daughter Alice. She handled our social media this summer, posting regularly to Facebook and Instagram. And finally, she filmed a three-part virtual video tour of the Historic Museum. The blog posts can be found on our website, www.historicsheperdstown.com, and the videos will be available soon on HSC’s YouTube channel. To find the tour and HSC Speaker Series videos, search Historic Shepherdstown Museum on the YouTube website, www.youtube.com.

Vote for Us!

Finally, The Historic Shepherdstown Museum is one of five finalists for the title “Best Museum” in The Journal’s annual Best of the Best Reader’s Choice Awards. The next step is the final round of voting to determine the winner and two finalists in each category. Voting will be done online, on a specially dedicated website, from September 18-26. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, Historic Shepherdstown & Museum, for exact information about how to show your support for the Museum by voting for us. You can vote daily during the contest.

Enjoy what remains of the summer. We hope to see you either in person or online at our annual meeting and Speaker Series talk in September.

Donna Bertazzoni
President, Historic Shepherdstown Commission Board of Directors

Dear Supporter of Historic Shepherdstown

Welcome to Spring! Historic Shepherdstown Commission and Museum has a lot of exciting news to share with you. We have scheduled the date for the Spring Opening Reception and the reopening of the Historic Shepherdstown Museum; we have set the lineup for our annual speaker series; we have received grants from two different organizations, one for a new exhibit that will open in May and the other to have the Museum’s S. Howell Brown 1852 Map of Jefferson County Virginia conserved; we are the subject of Hood College’s Public Relations Campaigns class; and our annual membership drive is also ongoing.

Spring Opening Reception and Museum Reopening

The Spring Opening Reception is back! It will be held on Friday, April 22, from 5-7 p.m. at the Entler Hotel, 129 East German Street. Invitations are being mailed to members from 2021 and 2022 who live within driving distance of Shepherdstown. Any member who lives farther away but will be in the area that weekend is also welcome to RSVP and attend. The event will be spread out between the Reception Room and the Entler porches and garden. It will feature hors d’oeuvres and desserts from Carol Sanders. Please RVSP by April 12 to Historic Shepherdstown at [email protected], or call 304-876-0910. We are looking forward to seeing you again.

The Museum will reopen on Saturday, April 23, at noon. Hours this year will be Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m. Anyone who is interested in volunteering as a docent is urged to contact Historic Shepherdstown at [email protected]. We will be opening a new exhibit, “African American Educational Opportunities in Jefferson County, WV, Before and After Brown v. Board of Education, 1954” the weekend of May 14-15. More information about that exhibit and the grant that is helping to fund it can be found later in this newsletter.

Annual Speaker Series

Our annual Speaker Series presentations begin in April and continue in May, September and October. All of the presentations will be held on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., and they are free and open to the public.

The Speaker Series will be held in the auditorium at Shepherd University’s Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education. Announcements about Zoom availability will be made closer to each talk.

On April 13, archaeologist Edward McMullen will discuss “Archaeological Excavations Above the Falls: Life Before Shepherdstown.” Ed is a professional archaeologist currently working in cultural resource management throughout Northern Virginia and the surrounding region for Thunderbird Archeology, Wetlands Studies and Solutions, Inc.

He has worked extensively identifying and excavating Chesapeake Native/Indigenous sites within Virginia and Maryland. He has a particular interest in Mid-Atlantic Indigenous history and has gained experience excavating, writing reports, and working with clients and agencies to preserve or mitigate cultural resources. His Master’s Thesis focused on excavation methodologies within the Chesapeake Bay region, while providing a paleoenvironmental narrative from the Paleoindian to Late Woodland cultural periods.

On May 11: Shepherdstown Opera House owners Steve and Harriet Pearson will discuss “The Shepherdstown Opera House: A Place of Many Dates.” May is Historic Preservation Month, and Historic Shepherdstown Commission’s annual Historic Preservation Awards also will be presented.

For generations, the Shepherdstown Opera House was the place in town to go out for a date. That’s all Steve and Harriet Pearson had in mind in 2017 when they first heard live music at the Opera House. Little did they know that this historic venue would soon become the stage for the next chapter of their adventures.

Between them the long-married couple had already raised two kids, run a few businesses (and a law practice), and travelled the globe.

Drawn by the culture and beauty of Shepherdstown and surrounding region — and the proximity to Washington, D.C. where Harriet still worked – they had decided to become more involved in the community and eventually relocate here.

So, when they learned that the Opera House was in need of new ownership, the Pearsons made the commitment to restore the building and revive the performance space for the 21^st century. The next three years saw many ups and downs in the restoration project including catastrophic flooding of the theater (in 2018) and pandemic-induced delays and uncertainties (2020-21).

Harriet and Steve look forward to re-opening the Shepherdstown Opera House in Summer 2022 and continuing a tradition dating back to 1910 of presenting a broad variety of entertainment for all ages on both stage and screen.

On September 14: Dr. Keith Alexander, associate professor of history at Shepherd University, will present “Living Libraries: Using Oral History to Preserve the Past.” Dr. Alexander’s students conducted the oral interviews that are the basis for a new exhibit “African American Educational Opportunities in Jefferson County, WV, Before and After Brown v. Board of Education, 1954” which will open at Historic Shepherdstown Museum in mid-May. The annual meeting for Historic Shepherdstown Commission will precede Dr. Alexander’s talk.

October 12: Historic Shepherdstown Commission will host a public forum entitled “Looking at the History and Future of the Shepherdstown Riverfront.” This event will be a panel presentation and community discussion.

West Virginia Humanities Council grant

HSC has received a $1,500 mini grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council to help fund a new Museum exhibit that will focus on educational opportunities for African American students in Jefferson County in the era before and after the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

The new permanent exhibit at Historic Shepherdstown Museum, “African American Educational Opportunities in Jefferson County, WV, Before and After Brown v. Board of Education, 1954” will open May 14. Despite the 1954 high court ruling, schools in Jefferson County remained largely segregated into the 1960s. The exhibit is based on oral histories collected by students of Dr. Keith Alexander, associate professor of history at Shepherd University.

This exhibit builds on Historic Shepherdstown Museum’s effort to fulfill its mission to preserve Shepherdstown’s heritage and the contributions of its citizens by telling the story of all of the people of the community. Only through the actual words of the Black residents can visitors begin to understand the complex lives of African Americans in Jefferson County during the mid-20th century.

Former Historic Shepherdstown Commission President Eleanor Finn proposed the oral history project to Dr. Alexander, and she also spearheaded “Busy Sundays,” Phase I of the Museum’s African American exhibit. “Busy Sundays” opened in 2016 and focuses on leisure time and church activities of Shepherdstown’s Black community. It features photos, quotes and artifacts from members of the Shepherdstown Red Sox, a local all-Black baseball team, and photos and information about the Brothers of Harmony, a well-known local gospel choir.

Oral history is a recognized research technique that gathers information from people with personal experience of historically significant events. In September, Dr. Alexander will discuss the importance of oral history as part of Historic Shepherdstown’s annual Speaker Series.

“African American Educational Opportunities in Jefferson County, WV, Before and After Brown v. Board of Education, 1954”is being presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations do not necessarily represent those of the West Virginia Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Americana Corner Grant

Historic Shepherdstown Commission has received a $7,000 grant from Americana Corner to conserve and restore the Museum’s copy of S. Howell Brown’s 1852 Map of Jefferson County, Virginia. The map was donated to the Museum in 1992 by Mary Hartzell Dobbins.

According to Jefferson County historian P. Douglas Perks, who wrote an article about the map for The Spirit of Jefferson newspaper, one of the features that distinguishes this map from earlier maps of the county is “the inclusion not only of every landowner’s name but also the farm’s boundaries, what Brown referred to as ‘Farm Limits.’” As Perks noted, “It is one thing to read a property’s metes and bounds in a deed or to see the boundaries on a plat, but it is another to be able to go to a map and see precisely where the property is located. That is the luxury afforded by S. Howell Brown to his subscribers in 1852, and to both historians and researchers today.”

The 1852 map of Jefferson County is an important historical document that captures all of those details and more less than a decade before the start of the Civil War. Within just a few years, abolitionist John Brown would conduct his raid on Harpers Ferry and subsequently be hanged in Charles Town. The federal armory in Harpers Ferry would be burned and the town would change hands many times during the course of the war. Federal troops took over parts of the county and burned some of the local plantations. And finally, the war itself resulted in the 1871 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Virginia v. West Virginia to include Jefferson and Berkeley counties in West Virginia. Among other things, Brown recorded the changes to ownership and boundaries of properties in a later 1883 map of Jefferson County, West Virginia.

The Museum plans to make the conserved map the centerpiece of a new exhibit in the Historic Shepherdstown Museum of maps of Shepherdstown and Jefferson County, which will open in the spring of 2023.  Maps are important historical documents and the new exhibit will allow visitors to the museum an opportunity to better understand how the town and the county in which it is located have evolved. The exhibit will include maps of both Shepherdstown and Jefferson County.

Among other maps, the Museum owns what is believed to be the earliest plat map of the layout of Thomas Shepherd’s Town. Paper conservation dated the map to the 1790s. At the time, the town was known as Mechlenburgh, and that is how the plat map is labeled. Among other things, the map locates two grist mills, a spring that is now known as Town Run, and the pathway to the ferry that crossed the Potomac River to Maryland. It provides original names of all of the streets, most of which still exist, as well as the layout of the plats of the town. The map shows how much of the original town still exists in the format laid out by Thomas Shepherd. But those who examine the map can also see important changes, such as the disappearance of most of Market Street. That street is now part of the campus of Shepherd University and has been replaced by university buildings.

Americana Corner was founded by Tom Hand in 2020 as an online resource to help others rediscover America’s incredible founding and first century of expansion. From the American Revolution to the settlement of the American West, from the Declaration of Independence to the Emancipation Proclamation, and from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, Americana Corner contains positive stories of the great events, founding documents, and inspirational leaders who helped create and shape our country. Perhaps most importantly, Tom discusses why these events and people from so long ago still matter to us today. The Americana Grant Program assists organizations that tell the story of our nation’s wonderful past and rekindle a love for American history in all its splendor. Americana Corner can be found online at americanacorner.com.

Students are studying Historic Shepherdstown Commission and Museum

Students from Hood College’s Public Relations Campaigns course have selected Historic Shepherdstown and Museum as their Spring 2022 subject. Public Relations Campaigns is a 400-level course for Communication Arts and Integrated Marketing Communication majors. The students, all juniors and seniors, are completing a situational analysis for us and they will be writing blog posts for our website. They visited the town, toured the Museum, and interviewed Kimo Williams, owner of KimoPics, who is one of the tenants in the Entler. They will be evaluating our social media, gauging our level of recognition within the community, and offering suggestions for improving our communications and outreach.

Annual Membership Drive

Finally, we want to thank everyone who has joined or rejoined Historic Shepherdstown Commission during its annual membership drive. There is still plenty of time to become a member. You can contact our administrator, Teresa McLaughlin, 304-876-0910, or by email at  [email protected], to ask for a membership form or you can join online through our website, historicshepherdstown, https://historicshepherdstown.com.

We are looking forward to reconnecting with members in person at our Spring Opening Reception on April 22. Don’t forget to RSVP if you plan to attend.

Best,

Donna Bertazzoni
President, Historic Shepherdstown Commission Board of Directors