the historic shepherdstown museum

The Historic Shepherdstown Museum is located in the Entler Hotel, at the corner of Princess and East German Street in Shepherdstown. In 1983 the Historic Shepherdstown Museum was founded to preserve and display artifacts, furniture, and historic documents that might otherwise have been lost.

The first floor of the museum, formerly the ladies’ and gentlemen’s parlors in the old Entler Hotel, is now decorated as a formal reception room. It contains the original Entler guest register, two spectacular Jacob Kraft clocks made in Shepherdstown, examples of Weis pottery that were made on the northwest corner of Duke and German streets, and an exhibit about the history of theShepherdstown riverfront.

The downstairs is also the place where books about Shepherdstown, its people and its history are for sale.

Upstairs there is a room furnished as an old hotel bedroom. It is in this bedroom that the hotel’s resident ghost, William Payton Smith is said to sometimes spend the night.

Smith engaged in a duel in the summer of 1809 with a friend and was mortally wounded in the exchange of fire. He was brought to the Entler Hotel and died of his wounds in a few hours.

Over the years since this tragic event, strange sounds resembling that of a person calling out, eerie footsteps, and rumpled bedclothes have led many to think that the ghost of William Payton Smith may still live in the Entler Hotel.

There are five rooms on the second and third floors containing local artifacts such as Sheetz rifles, a Conrad Schindler (Mary Tyler Moore’s great-great-great grandfather) copper kettle, a 1905 mail wagon, and American Indian tools, and  Civil War artifacts and exhibits.

The museum is open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturdays and 1:00 to 4:00 pm on Sundays from April through October and the two weeks of Christmas in Historic Shepherdstown. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted.

Anyone who wants to can do research in the museum archives, but only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30 am until 12:00 noon—and only by appointment made by calling Cindy Cook at 876-0910.