Photography By Ryan Hulvat
American Dime Museum
“There is no other museum like this in the world,” says American Dime Museum co-curator Dick Horne to visitors entering the redbrick Baltimore row house that holds his collection. One quick look around leaves little doubt of that. The first item one encounters is a glass-topped sarcophagus, encasing what looks like an eight-foot-tall human being with a really bad case of ecxema. “That’s a mummified Peruvian Amazon,” says Horne, a gray-bearded fount of obscure knowledge. “Not a real one, of course. It was produced by the Nelson Supply Company in 1910. They made the best mummies you could get.”
The Dime Museum is a re-creation of a typical nineteenth-century museum, when “museums” were simply collections of oddball items showcased in people’s homes. The more unusual the item, the more people would pay to see it, Horne explains. Eventually, this concept evolved into the sideshow, a format perfected by legendary showman P.T. Barnum.
The American Dime Museum’s entry floor contains a truly odd mix of bric-a-brac - both legitimate (and not so legit) - from surprisingly beautiful jewelry made from human hair to “Downy Ocean Hunne,” a feathered fish supposedly caught off the coast of Ocean City, Md. Downstairs is a re-creation of a circus sideshow, featuring freaks like Betty Broadbent, the “Tatooed Venus” and the Devil Man, a mummy with horns, hooves, and a tail, who was once pictured on the cover of Weekly World News. Horne, along with co-curator James Taylor, often take museum items to schools or senior citizen homes. “Most people bring Labrador retrievers,” Horne says. “We show up with shrunken heads.” 1808 Maryland Ave., Baltimore, 410-230-0263, http://www.dimemuseum.com. - JS
The Museum of Rural Life
Ah, the legends of Caroline County. Ever hear the one about Lady Eglantine, a local hen who laid 350 eggs in a single year? Or how about Darty Moore, a native who invented the possum shuck, in which boys would drag a possum through town and let dogs chase the scent. And that’s just the beginning of the tales told at The Museum of Rural Life in Denton.
To get to the heart of the museum, you must walk through the antiques and art in the restored Taylor-Brown house, built for merchant-broker Solomon Brown in 1819 and subsequently owned by the Taylor family. This structure has some stories of its own. It was moved twice by mule cart and survived the fire that leveled most of Denton when balls of candlewick and kerosene were flung joyfully at a Civil War reconciliation picnic.
A connecting addition holds an exhibit of three historical houses typifying how people lived in landlocked Caroline County for the past 330 years: an entire log cabin, and sections of a middle-class farmer’s dwelling and elaborate tobacco plantation house. The county’s twenty-five year economic boom in tobacco, grains, canneries, and poultry (followed by a seventy-five year bust) is illustrated in life-sized murals and curious objects like the ornate “Two Johns,” a twelve-foot tall mirror decorated in gilt and named after two local eccentrics named John. Just another Caroline County legend. The Court House Square, 16 North 2nd St., Denton, Md., 410-479-2055. - PN
Eastern Shore Railway Museum
Train tracks lead into Parksley, Va.’s, quaint town square where tiny shops and picture-perfect Victorian homes give the town the look of a model train village come to life. A more apropos setting could not be found for a museum dedicated to trains.
To step into the authentically furnished building is to go back in time when passengers purchased tickets and warmed themselves by coal stoves, listening in anticipation for the cheery refrain of the train whistle. In the glory days of the iron horse, fourteen passenger trains a day would stop at bustling Parksley. Now, just the light blue engine of the Eastern Shore Railroad pulls freight cars past the old-time station.
The large main building of the museum is chock-full of railroad memorabilia from the many that operated on the Delmarva Peninsula since the mid-1800s. The 1927 Diplomat, an elegant parlor/lounge car complete with outside observation platform; a jaunty 1949 caboose; and an impressive 1950 sleeper car are available for guided tours.
Small-town museums seem to have a penchant for the peculiar, and the Eastern Shore Railway Museum is no different. The 1890s tool shed holds not only a variety of massive antique workin’-on-the-railroad tools, but a Victorian-era children’s coffin, and a 1948 RCA television set, sold by Mason Drummond, the first man in Parksley to sell TVs. 18468 Dunne Ave., Parksley, Va., 757-665-RAIL. - DR
The Captain Salem Avery House Museum/Shady Side Rural Heritage Society
In the mid-1800s, Captain Salem Avery, a Long Island fisherman turned Bay waterman, built this house on a peninsula on the West River for his wife and nine children. Today, the house contains collections from the Avery era, including the family Bible, circa 1867, found in the restored parlor, and Lucretia’s kitchen, a hub of churns, flatirons, presses, kettles, and bath pans. In the parlor is a baby walker made of wood, a well-gnawed leather teething doll, baby gowns, and old photos.
An exhibit on Chesapeake steamboats and a Shady Side peninsula relief map are housed in the addition, built when a group of Masonic families used the property as a summer retreat in the 1920s. This addition is also a meeting room where the Shady Side Rural Heritage Society holds their popular winter lecture series. Homemade regional dishes are served at the lectures, and speakers include local authors, artists, and historians. Contact the Rural Heritage Society for reservations. 1418 East-West Shady Side Rd., Shady Side, Md., 410-867-4486, http://www.averyhouse.org. - PN
Patuxent River Naval Air Museum
Be careful of what you say at the Patuxent Naval Air Museum, they’re listening. One of the more obscure objects on display at this ode to the history and heritage of the nearby Naval testing base is a Vietnam War-era listening device disguised as a weed that was dropped from planes and, literally, planted to detect the presence of the enemy in the jungles of North Vietnam. And if you are caught divulging secrets within one of the museum’s two rooms, your punishment may be a death-defying spin on the Iron Maiden, the G-load testing apparatus and one of the crown-jewels of the museum. Or perhaps you’ll simply be placed in one of the many ejection seats on display and rocketed through the roof. Whatever your fate, just hope you aren’t forced to drink the Navy-issue cup of coffee sitting alone in its own display case, “strong and acrid so a spoon can stand in it.”
“The mission of the museum,” says director Henry Bonner, “is to make people aware of the science and technology of naval aviation.” For example, are you aware that the Navy once tested an inflatable airplane? The museum displays the retired Goodyear Inflatoplane, a portable observation aircraft inflated and operated from remote areas. It was tested at Patuxent Naval Air Station in 1959, but never went into production due to structural problems.
The museum also houses one of the nation’s largest model airplane displays; a one-man and unmanned helicopter; and photographs of the first aircraft built for the Navy, the Custiss A-1 AT “Triad.” Moving into modern technology, the museum holds three unmanned aerial vehicles used for reconnaissance: the Xdrone, the Pioneer (used in Bosnia and Afghanistan), and the X47-A, an experimental aircraft that will have its first flight in January. The museum also has a well-stocked gift shop of airplane cookie cutters and model planes - and of course, pins, pencils, and pullovers with a patriotic theme. 22156 Three Notch Rd., Lexington Park, Md., 301-863-7418. - KB
Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge
The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center lies tucked away on 752 acres on the southern tip of this picturesque peninsula.
Through interactive displays, videos, and clever exhibits you can learn how the refuge provides a crucial pit stop for a multitude of migratory birds that fuel up and rest each fall, before continuing the journey south across 18 miles of the Chesapeake Bay.
Even in the bleakest winter months the refuge is bustling with wings and wild things that can be observed from a cozy lookout located within the visitor center. A huge, glass-enclosed observation area overlooks a fresh water pond teaming with wildlife. Through spotting scopes, you can watch luminous black ducks trace half circles in synchronized flight before alighting on the water, or perky, hooded mergansers diving under the crystal-like surface.
At the re-created old hunting lodge, “sit a spell” and listen to recorded stories of legendary former poacher and renowned decoy carver, Delbert “Cigar” Daisy. Learn how he survived a bitter cold hunting trip with piles of bagged ducks or how old-time oyster grounds were sometimes held “not with a lease but a rifle.” Also, nothing beats a walk around the visitor center’s “backyard” as a sure cure for seasonal cabin fever. 5003 Hallett Cir., Cape Charles, Va., 757-331-2760. - DR
Rock Hall Waterman’s Museum
The first thing you need to know about the Rock Hall Waterman’s Museum is that the key is available next door at the Diddy Bag gift shop. The sign on its front door tells you so, and also that the museum operates on the honor system - make a donation to the Waterman’s Association if you want to, but please, leave things as you came.
Sited right on the water, the museum encompasses all of three tiny rooms, each crammed with odds and ends and memorabilia pertaining to the watermen’s way of life: heavily used brass fish scales, ancient eel pots, an early barometer, and a stuffed muskrat or two. Great old photographs depict watermen past and present. One room is a re-created sea shanty, a claustrophobia-inducing floating hut that watermen used to tow behind their boats and sleep in for weeks at a time while the oystering or crabbing - or whatever else - was good. The other half of the room captures the atmosphere of an early twentieth-century oyster-shucking factory. Outside, there’s a long-retired 42-foot workboat and an 18-foot bateau. Oh, and if you’re the last one out, don’t forget to lock the museum’s door and return the key. 20880 Rock Hall Ave., Rock Hall, Md., 410-778-6697, http://www.havenharbour.com/hhwatmus.htm. - JS
Historical Electronics Museum
First established in 1973 by Robert Dwight, an employee for Westinghouse Defense and Electronics Systems Center in Linthicum, Md., the Historical Electronics Museum is a what’s what of electronic technologies and an education in the science behind many of today’s high-tech gizmos.
Beginning with an introduction of the principles of electricity (with hands-on exhibits for the kids), the museum traces achievements in electronics from communications to military applications to space. With the bulk of its funding coming from Northrop-Gruman, it’s not surprising that the museum contains many items only an electronics engineer could love. Lay audiences will appreciate Alexander Bain’s 1843 Automatic Electrochemical Recording Telegraph, a precursor to the fax machine; the ancient microwave oven from the 1956 World’s Fair in Belgium; and one of three portable TV cameras used by Apollo 11 astronauts. (One is still on the moon.) Located near BWI Airport, the HEM makes a good stopover when you’re waiting for a flight - you can even listen to pre-recorded radio chatter from the airport’s traffic tower. 1745 W. Nursery Rd. and Elkridge Landing Rd. Linthicum, Md., 410-765-0230, http://www.erols.com/radarmus. - JS
St. Clement’s Island Potomac River Museum
Maryland colonists first landed on St. Clement’s Island in 1634. Today, on the mainland, across from this “birthplace of Maryland” is the St. Clement’s Island Potomac River Museum.
The focal point of the museum is a 20-foot mural depicting the Maryland colonists (using locals’ faces). Next to a plaque documenting the known names of the first settlers who survived the voyage to Maryland. Meanwhile, back in merry ol’ England, King Henry VIII was still in search of Miss Right, the story of which is told in the Calvert Room using elaborately costumed dolls. But there’s nothing gentile about the punt gun, capable of killing one hundred ducks with one shot.
Also on the museum’s premises is the Little Red Schoolhouse, an early twentieth-century building donated to the museum in 1991. The island itself is a state park with hiking trails and picnic facilities. Directly across from the museum is an impressive gift shop packed with children’s books, toys, picture frames, cards, nautical and Maryland souvenirs, tote bags, and more toys. 38370 Point Breeze Rd., Colton’s Point, Md. 20626, 301-769-2222. - KB
The Radio-Television Museum
The historic Harmel House, a 1905 storekeeper’s residence, makes an appropriate setting for the vintage radios and TVs displayed here. Beginning with a circa-1989 Marconi spark transmitter - the same kind used aboard the Titanic - to 1950s Bakelite beauties that brought the first chords of rock Ôn’ roll into people’s homes, the museum contains a treasure trove of old-fashioned sound-producing equipment. Of the several hundred pieces on display, the vast majority involve radios. (Not surprising, considering the museum is run by the nonprofit Radio History Society, a regional 900-member organization.)
Like vintage automobiles, old radios were truly stylish machines. Consider the gorgeous 1936 Sparton made of mirror-like cobalt glass, or a 1939 Philco floor model with a - get this - wireless remote. “Remotes for TVs didn’t come until the 1960s, but you could change the station on your radio from across the room in the ‘30s,” says the museum’s volunteer curator Brian Belanger. “Of course, the remote weighs about 10 pounds.”
The museum also houses vintage radio print advertisements and memorabilia, ancient journals, and an old drugstore tube tester that still works. (Feel free to test your own old radio tubes.) 2608 Mitchellville Rd., Bowie, Md., 301-390-1020, http://www.radiohistory.org. - JS
Historical Society of Talbot County, Three Centuries Tour
The Historical Society of Talbot County’s “Three Centuries Tour” takes you on a spin of three Quaker homes built during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. “The main draw of the tours,” says Robin Munson, curator of collections for the historical society, “is to learn how the average Quaker lived in the county, the things they owned, and how they were used. People are surprised to learn that the county had a Quaker population. They were one of the reasons why the county had one of the largest free-black populations for the time.”
The tour includes a one-room, circa-1670 reproduction of a Quaker house, called “The Ending of Controversy;” an original, two-story circa-1790 dwelling called “Joseph’s Cottage;” and the James Nealle house, a circa-1810 Federal townhouse - the largest and grandest of the three homes. The rooms in each home are sparse, multipurpose spaces containing some original kitchen items, furniture, and unique archives, like the 1804 set of encyclopedias found in the James Nealle house.
Next to the houses, The Historical Society of Talbot County displays revolving exhibits throughout the year. In January and February the museum hosts “The Best of the Mystery Photos,” featuring pictures by H. Robins Hollyday, a commercial photographer in Talbot County during the 1930s-1950s whose black-and-white scenes the historical society is still trying to identify. Every Monday in Easton’s Star Democrat, the historical society prints one of Hollyday’s photos, in hope that readers will call with answers to the “mystery.” 25 S. Washington St. Easton, Md., 410-822-0773, http://www.hstc.org.
