Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

Our History

Taken around 1847, this photograph shows Thomas Glass (1792-1861) with son William Wood Glass (1835-1911) and daughter Ella (1834-1860).

 

Note

Rose Hill, the ancestral home of the Glass family, is located five miles from the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley campus. Owned by the museum, the Rose Hill grounds are open for tours on the third Saturday of each month April-October.

 

Quickfact

The Wood and the Glass families were connected in 1832 when Catherine ("Kitty") Wood wed Thomas S. Glass. This marriage marked an important point in Glen Burnie's history; with no Wood namesakes to inherit the site, the Glass family would eventually become its stewards.

The Glen Burnie House and its surrounding six acres of gardens opened as a museum in 1997. The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) opened eight years later on April 3, 2005.

Centuries before the house and its surrounding landscape opened to the public and the dream of a regional history museum for the Valley became a reality, the people that lived here left indelible marks that are part of this historic property's story today.

With the opening of the new museum, the site now tells the broader story of the Shenandoah Valley and those that have made their homes in the Valley for thousands of years. Exhibits in the new museum provide an interpretive backdrop for the many individual stories told by historic sites throughout the region, including the museum complex's own Glen Burnie House, which played a role in the settlement of the Valley.

More information about the history of the house, gardens, and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley project is detailed here.

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