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SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — The historic Shepherdstown Museum can now boast of owning a third tall clock made by Jacob Craft, a local craftsman known for the timepieces he made in his Shepherdstown shop in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
When visitors enter the museum at 129 E. German St., they will see four early clocks, three built by Craft and the fourth by John Woltz, a Shepherdstown craftsman who worked in town in the early 19th century, said Victoria Smith, a museum board member.
Smith was serving as a docent Saturday, the first day of the museum’s 2018 season. It is open through the fall on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Smith said.
A second feature in this year’s season opening is a presentation of old photographs and prints on “The Changing Face of Shepherdstown,” an exhibit compiled and organized by Jefferson County Historian Doug Perks that gives residents and visitors a glimpse of past and present-day Shepherdstown from the 1860s to 2015.
“Streetscapes and viewscapes change through time," Perks said in a museum news release. "Roads were moved and improved and one building replaced another.”
Perk’s display is set up in the first-floor common room in what was the main dining room when the building was the 24-room Entler Hotel.
Smith said Jacob Craft clocks were “not made for the common person. They were high luxury items.”
"Craft clocks in good condition can sell for $7,000 to $8,000 or more,” said Wayne Goodrich of Shepherdstown, whom museum officials consider to be knowledgeable about Craft and his clocks. Smith said Goodrich takes care of the museum clocks.
Goodrich said it is not known how many clocks Craft made in his shop. He believes Craft made the metal works that ran the clocks while another local craftsman made the cabinets.
The museum’s newest Craft clock was donated by Curt Mason, 77, known locally for his volunteer efforts to keep more than 2,000 area residents informed through daily emails about upcoming cultural and musical events.
Mason moved from Summit Point, W.Va., to Oak Island, N.C., in 2017. His email duties have been assumed by Jennifer Alarcon, program assistant at the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War in Shepherdstown.
Mason said Saturday his Jacob Craft clock once belonged to Rezin Davis Shepherd, a Shakespearean actor in the early 20th century and a great-grandson of Thomas Shepherd, founder of Shepherdstown. Rezin Davis Shepherd died in California in 1946.
Rezin Davis Shepherd left the clock to his longtime housekeeper, Mason said.
“The housekeeper’s daughter, Elizabeth Shepherd Saxe, was my mother’s close friend,” Mason said. "Elizabeth had valued Mom’s appreciation of the clock and felt it would be in good hands if it were passed on to her.
When Mason moved to North Carolina, he donated the clock to the museum in memory of his mother, Berthe Courtois Mason, he said.
“She would have been happy to know it came home to within a block of where Jacob Craft brought it to life,” he said.
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