Curator's Choice
Like history? Love museums? From ancient relics to modern marvels, each episode of this show features a new museum and a sampling of some amazing artifacts housed there. What makes Curator's Choice truly special is our exclusive interviews with the unsung heroes of museums—the curators themselves. These guardians of history will share insights, anecdotes, and the often untold stories that breathe life into the artifacts they protect.
Through this podcast, our mission is to dispel the notion of museums as static, old, and dull spaces. Instead, we aim to reveal them as vibrant repositories brimming with mystery and wonder, one artifact at a time.
New episodes are released every two weeks, and you can tune in anywhere you get your podcasts!
Curator's Choice
Bonus Episode 3: Maryland Folklore and More
For the second September bonus episode, we meet with my coworker Vincent Turner, an Exhibit Educator at the Calvert Marine Museum. Throughout his land deed research of Calvert County, and his passion for reading about Maryland’s folklore, he has some spooky stories that can connect to real-life places and people (even some items from the museum as well!). Learn about the ghost behind the Mudd House restoration, the haunting of Drum Point Lighthouse, what the witches were doing in the Devil’s Woodyard, and a prank pulled on the crew of the steamboat St. Mary’s that even made an appearance in the local newspaper in 1904.
...For, you must know, along the shore grim coffins strew the sand,
Here you will see a dead man's foot, and there a dead man's hand.
Therefore, should you parade the shore, you must use circumspection,
Or you may tread upon the toes of ghosts who'll take exception.
-Baltimore Sun, "Frightened by a Ghost", Officers of the Steamer St. Mary's Play Practical Joke on Companions", January 31, 1904.
Literary References:
- For the Mudd House: Gallagher, Trish, Ghosts & Haunted House of Maryland, (Centreville: Tidewater Publishers, 1988), 9-13.
- For Drum Point Light House: Okonowicz, Ed, The Big Book of Maryland Ghost Stories, (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2010), 224-225.
- For the Devil’s Woodyard: Okonowicz, Ed, The Big Book of Maryland Ghost Stories, (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2010), 229-230.
- For Steamboat St. Mary’s: Trevor J. Blank and David J. Puglia, Maryland Legends: Folklore From The Old Line State, (Charleston: The History Press, 2014), 63-65.
Curator's Choice - A podcast for history nerds and museum lovers