A mysterious painting, a relic from a dark night in history, a keepsake from a World War II vessel and a piece of candy. These are just some of the mysteries at Southern Maryland museums.
Visitors to the Bayside History Museum in North Beach can learn about Camp Roosevelt, Maryland’s first permanent Boy Scout camp, see a list of each of the passengers on the Mayflower and an 1876 Wooten desk. But one everyday object on display has a mysterious background.
It’s 15-by-20 inches and made of heavy card stock. In the middle is a colorful painting and at the bottom are a dozen small pieces of paper. What is this artifact and why are there questions surrounding it?
Owings, 1920
The Owings Bank had just released its annual wall calendar, and in the middle of the calendar is a watercolor painting of a Native American dressed in traditional garb paddling a canoe down a small waterway.
“What intrigues me is it’s a bank and the advertising slogan is a beautiful Native American Indian in a canoe,”museum Founder and President Grace Mary Brady said. “It’s a beautiful photo, but why is this painting featured on a bank calendar from 1920?”
Brady points to the fact that there were likely few if any Native Americans still living in the immediate area at that time and that Owings is not on the water, though it is a few miles from both the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River.
The painting is titled “In the Land of Sky-Blue Waters” from an original by Wisconsin artist Miss Zulu Kenyon. “I have no idea why the Owings Bank decided to use this painting,” Brady said. “It’s really a mystery.”
Visitors to Leonardtown’s Old Jail Museum can see an election ballot box from 1860 and a Freedom Seekers exhibit, but one artifact harkens back to one of the darkest moments in the town’s history.
It’s about 10 inches tall by 8 inches in circumference. It’s made of glass and metal and holds a dark brown organic material. What is this artifact and what role did it play in commemorating an injustice?
Leonardtown, 1887
Benjamin Hance was strolling along a quiet country road when he encountered a white woman. It is unclear exactly what transpired between the two, but Hance, who was Black, was arrested for assault and thrown into jail.
Days later, a mob breaks the 22–year-old out of his cell and lynch him from the limbs of a witch hazel tree near the site of what is now a public park near the Port of Leonardtown Winery.
During an Emancipation Day ceremony in 2019, soil was collected from the scene of the lynching and placed into two jars, one of which was sent to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., while the other is now kept in the very cell that Hance once occupied in the heart of Leonardtown.
“It’s a real physical reminder of what happened,” St. Mary’s County Museum Division Manager Karen Stone said, “so we find people touching it and making a connection with it.”
Those who stop by the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum in Waldorf can see the couch where Dr. Samuel Mudd first examined John Wilkes Booth or an officer’s desk made by the doctor while he was incarcerated, but one innocuous object played a role in helping Booth receive medical aid.
It’s 15-feet long, 7-inches in diameter and made of a dark-colored wood.
What is this artifact and what role did it play in one of the darkest moments in American history?
Waldorf, 1865
After shooting President Abraham Lincoln, Booth arrived at Mudd’s house after a 6-hour, 25-mile horseback ride in the rain and darkness looking to have his broken left leg treated, which he injured during the assassination at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Mudd wanted Booth upstairs, and because of the pain and the tight riding boot on his leg, Booth hopped up the steps clutching the very handrail still attached in the Mudd House.
“Imagine if you’re John Wilkes Booth and you have a broken leg and have to go upstairs, you’re holding onto the bannister and you’re hopping, would be my guess, with his left leg up,” Bob Bowser, head docent at the museum, said. “I imagine the swelling with his boot is cutting the circulation in his leg probably causing way more pain than that break actually is.”
Visitors to the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum can step inside an actual rail car or see a recreation of the depot’s office, but the final resting place of one beautiful item has confounded museum staff for more than a decade.
It’s about 2-by-2 inches, made of metal and has 20 letters and one numeral stamped on it. What is this artifact and what connection does it have with an event that has stumped museum staff for so long?
Washington, D.C., 1902
President Theodore Roosevelt was refurnishing the White House and held a yard sale to sell off items, including a Tiffany glass screen. Rumors are that local Calvert businessman Turner A. Wickersham bought the box of multi-colored glass pieces for $275 (about $9,200 today) and installed the piece into what later became known as The Belvedere Hotel in Chesapeake Beach.
“That was the most grand place in the beach at the time,” Assistant Museum Registrar Kris DeGrace said, “and it would have fit that.”
A book on the White House states that to be true as well, but The Belvedere burned down in March 31, 1923, and no trace of the piece was seen again. An anonymous caller to the museum several years ago said they saw someone tip-toeing out of the ruins with glass.
The museum has several remnants from the hotel following the fire, including several glass bottles, piece of a cracked porcelain plate and the “BELVEDERE HOTEL WAITER 6” pin.
“The story is that it was put in there,” DeGrace said of the screen. “We don’t know for certain, but that is the rumor. We would love to figure it out conclusively.”
Visitors to the Piney Point Lighthouse Museum & Historic Park can visit the first lighthouse built on the Potomac River and step inside a life-sized osprey nest, but one artifact there is thousands of miles away from where it should be.
It’s 7-inches square and made of black metal, wood and glass. It has a face with numerals that appears faded by time. What is this artifact and how did it come to rest here?
Off the coast or Ireland, 1945
The U-115 submarine, which is fitted with an experimental synthetic rubber skin designed to counter sonar devices, was on patrol when it faced an enemy attack. It later dove to 570 feet and for the next 31 hours successfully hid from the Allies. The captain of the vessel, known as The Black Panther, claimed that 299 depth charges were dropped near it and caused no significant damage. One week later, the war ended and the Germans surrendered the sub.
The Black Panther was eventually brought to Piney Point’s torpedo test station in late 1945 where it underwent tests by being sunk and raised several times before being sunk one last time in 1949 about 100 feet offshore in the Potomac River.
Before it was scuttled, Capt. Thomas Murphy removed the submarine’s chronometer, the very one that is on display at the museum in St. Mary’s County.
“It’s very neat,” Stone said. “There are not a lot of things like that around, especially from a German boat. And it’s unusual that we have a German boat here in the Potomac.”
The museum is currently redoing its Black Panther exhibit, which should open sometime in the fall.
Visitors to the Veterans Museum at Patriot Park in Newburg can see real military vehicles and airplanes and a model of the U.S.S. Ozark, but one simple artifact looks like discarded trash.
It’s 10-inches long, it’s brown, orange and white in color and has a foil-like finish to it, and what it held was brown and sweet. What is this popular treat and what role did it play in securing a key battle for U.S. troops?
North Korea, 1950
Things were looking bleak for 7,000 troops in the First Marine Division. They were surrounded by more than 80,000 North Korean troops at the Chosin mountain range, almost out of ammunition and braved temperatures that dropped to as low as -60-degrees.
Troops put in a call for Tootsie Rolls — which was code for 60 mm mortar shells — but the radio operator mistakenly sent pallets of the chocolatey candy. Regardless, the nourishment was much needed and gave a morale boost to the troops, who also realized that by warming the candies next to their bodies, they were able to use them to plug bullet holes in gas cans and radiators as they refroze.
Over the next two weeks, the Marines successfully fought their way to the coast.
“It’s amazing how somebody can make a mistake but that mistake turned out to be a positive thing that ended up being, ‘Wow, I’m glad that happened,’” Veterans Museum volunteer Connie Uy said. “If George Washington were alive he would have called it ‘Divine Providence.’”
An out-of-place painting, the whereabouts of a glass screen, a jar of dirt, a sweet treat, a wooden handrail and a nautical device. These are a few of the mysteries housed and on display at Southern Maryland museums.
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