Historic Shepherdstown Museum

The interesting thing about the Historic Shepherdstown Museum is that the building that houses it is quite historic itself. Built in the early 1800s, it operated as a hotel until 1921 when it was purchased by Shepherd College. The town purchased the building from Shepherd in the early 1970s and a group of local townspeople restored the building. The museum opened its doors in 1983.

You’ll be able to look back in time here – three tall clocks made in Shepherdstown in the late 1700s by Jacob Kraft are housed in the museum. A half-scale replica of James Rumsey’s steamboat – the first steamboat to travel – is also here. Rooms throughout the museum are decorated in period furnishings and on the second floor is a traveler’s room as it would have looked in the mid-eighteenth century, costing 25 – 50 cents a night.

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