Schifferstadt hosts final event of season
Dec. 11—The Schifferstadt Architectural Museum, one of Frederick's oldest and most visible landmarks, held a final event of the season on Saturday before closing until the spring.
There was hot cider and gingersnap cookies in the hall by the kitchen and mulled wine and sausages for sale in the basement, along with a display of Scherenschnitte, the German art of paper cutting.
Saturday was the last day for tours in the unheated historic stone house, which sits next to U.S. 15 along Frederick's Rosemont Avenue, until it reopens in April.
It was part of the Museums by Candlelight event at historical sites around the county, hosted by the Frederick Historic Sites Consortium.
Along with Schifferstadt, sites such as Catoctin Furnace Historical Society in Thurmont, the Seton Shrine in Emmitsburg, the William F. Moran Museum and Foundation in Middletown, and the Rose Hill Manor Park and Museums in Frederick also participated in the event.
The Schifferstadt's event featured children's activities, cooking demonstrations in the house's kitchen, and traditional German music by uniformed Hessian musicians.
It's a way of opening the house to people who may not otherwise come, said Boyce Rensberger, a docent at the museum.
"We do get quite a variety of visitors," he said, noting that they had been busy since opening at noon.
The house offers people a chance to see how the earliest European settlers in the area would have lived, he said.
Joseph and Cathrina Brunner arrived in Philadelphia in 1729 after immigrating from Germany with three generations of their family, and came to Frederick County in 1736.
The house and 300-acre farm were named after the family's home village in Germany.
Three grown sons and two married daughters settled nearby, and in 1758 their son Elias and his wife Albertina built the stone house on the site of his parents' log cabin.
Sue Baldwin showed several visitors the kitchen, and explained how members of the Brunner family would have cooked.
A retired elementary school library media specialist, Baldwin said she's always loved American history.
She began volunteering at the museum in the summer of 2019.
With several German ancestors, Baldwin said the house's very German characteristics are what she likes best about it.
In the basement, Betty Maestri and her grandson Michael Maestri, 5, examined a display of period farming tools.
Michael had been wanting to come and see the house for some time, and they had been reading a lot about colonial times lately, Betty said.
He was especially interested in the several large fireplaces throughout the house, and the archways in the cellar, she said.
After being closed for nearly two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum reopened for weekend tours in April.
"We think of it as one of the jewels of Frederick," Rensberger said.
Follow Ryan Marshall on Twitter: @RMarshallFNP
