What's Going On

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Porch Talks -- 2021 -- we're back!

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We're hosting eight more free talks this summer. Talks are on Sundays and begin at 2pm. The next is July 25. Everyone is welcome.

 

There's no need to let us know you're coming, but it would be helpful if you RSVP. We have chairs, but you might want to bring your own.

  • Elba: James Tyson's Furnace and Beyond, featuring Johnny Johnsson
    Sun, Aug 08
    Gate House Museum
    Elba: James Tyson's Furnace and Beyond, featuring Johnny Johnsson
    It resembles a pile of rocks now, somewhere between the crumbling Groveland Mansion, the railroad tracks, and the river. But once, Elba Furnace burned hot. Johnny Johnsson knows more about it than anyone. Come for the history, the technology, and the gossip from another era in Sykeville's history.
    RSVP
  • The Lynching of Townsend Cook: Reckoning with anti-black violence in Carroll County
    Sun, Aug 15
    Gate House Museum
    The Lynching of Townsend Cook: Reckoning with anti-black violence in Carroll County
    The Carroll County Coalition of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project speaks of June, 1885, when 50 armed men in masks broke into the Westminster jail, pulled out a 21-year-old black man named Townsend Cook, drove him away, put a bullet in his head, and left him hanging from a white oak tree.
    RSVP
  • John Wilkes Booth and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, featuring Bob Allen
    Sun, Aug 22
    Gate House Museum
    John Wilkes Booth and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, featuring Bob Allen
    On April 15, 1865, John Wilkes Booth slipped into Abraham Lincoln's box during a play at Ford's theater, and fired a single bullet into the back of the President's head. He leapt onto the stage, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” Bob Allen has spent much of his life studying the story. Come hear it.
    RSVP
  • The Small World of E. Francis Baldwin, with Mandy Bernard
    Sun, Sep 05
    Gate House Museum
    The Small World of E. Francis Baldwin, with Mandy Bernard
    E. Francis Baldwin designed the 1884 Sykesville B&O Station and countless other stations and iconic buildings in the Baltimore–Washington metro area. Join Mandy Bernard of The Catholic University of America's library school, for the story of this great, nearly forgotten Baltimore architect.
    RSVP
  • The Eldersburg that Was, Featuring Bill Conaway
    Sun, Sep 12
    Gate House Museum
    The Eldersburg that Was, Featuring Bill Conaway
    Before it became macadam and convenience stores, Eldersburg was the wilderness, and then farmland, and then something just a bit more. Bill Conaway was born there in 1940. He remembers it the way it was.
    RSVP
  • Daisy Dorsey, one of Springfield's First Nurses, with Adrienne Smith
    Sun, Sep 19
    Gate House Museum
    Daisy Dorsey, one of Springfield's First Nurses, with Adrienne Smith
    Join Gate House volunteer and educator, Adrienne Smith, as she tells the story of Daisy Dorsey, who began her career as a Springfield nurse in 1903, then moved on to Montevue Asylum in Frederick, where she radically changed standards and oversaw the removal of patients with mental health problems.
    RSVP
  • The Governor's Son. The Wild Adventures of Frank Brown, Jr.
    Sun, Sep 26
    Gate House Museum
    The Governor's Son. The Wild Adventures of Frank Brown, Jr.
    Frank Brown, Jr., it seems, was nothing like his father, the governor. Rich, wild, funny, a great horseman and reckless driver, he killed a man with his car, sprang a friend from an asylum, stole his best friend's beautiful wife (twice), drank heavily, and died before he turned 40.
    RSVP
  • In Search of Helen from Two Locks, with Jack White and Sid Starliper
    Sun, Jul 25
    Gate House Museum
    In Search of Helen from Two Locks, with Jack White and Sid Starliper
    She died in Springfield Hospital in 1951. Her son barely knew her, but one day in his seventies, Sid Starliper decided to find his mother. His search led him to Sykesville and the Gate House and Jack White and the discovery of a rare genetic disease that took both his mother and his sister.
    RSVP
  • Warren Dorsey at 100
    Sun, Jul 18
    Gate House Museum
    Warren Dorsey at 100
    The grandson of a slave, Warren Dorsey is a scientist, educator, singer, story teller, and the oldest person alive who was born in Sykesville. Hear him talk and sing.
    RSVP