(Editor’s note: DeeDee Wood is the owner of Black Cat Curiosities, an online antiques research and sales venue.)
Karen Coleman Gibbons-Neff stands in front of her family’s heirloom quilt. (Photo by DeeDee Wood)
As you pull into the quaint, picturesque town of Preston, Md., you will see an impressive house on Main Street, the Wilson/Noble House, the oldest house in Preston, built in 1850.
It is also the Preston Historical Society, where I recently caught up with Karen Coleman Gibbons-Neff, Donations Director, for a tour and discussion of all things historical and antique.
The society property is not only a house museum, but has a 1980 addition built in the back, housing many local artifacts and historical treasures, as well as several outside buildings, including a small chapel, a local farm creamery building and equipment/farm “waterman” building. The grounds here are stately, with mature pecan trees dropping early fall nuts, a wrought-iron surround on the porch of the home from days gone by, grinding wheels from the local Linchester Mill, and beautiful landscaping. Inside are artifacts and history of the people of Preston and surrounding areas.
The large museum addition on the back of the home fits nicely into a step up into a home tour. In the addition, you will find displays on local school artifacts, a counter and pharmacy items from a local establishment, tomato/canning industry artifacts and information, Preston 151 Line Trucking, a display on the historic African American town of Jonestown, military displays, pine derby box racing and so much more.
There are many antiques to consider in both areas of the addition and home, as well as the outside waterman building. Visitors can consider farm machinery, watermen tools, old toys, furniture, local relics of all sorts and hundreds of other objects, which include an old safe, rare photos, business antiques, signs and more.
The museum is well organized and contains interesting tid-bits from a by-gone era, such as a display on Sallie Dean and her infamous story from Harmony from the late 1800s, a display on Jean Patchett, a famous 1940s-50s model and glamorous icon, born in Preston, and more information about local businesses, homes and local flavors.
There was a Friendship Quilt displayed in the hall, from 1936. Gibbons-Neff was excited about this item. “It was made by the ladies of Hog Creek, Maryland. My grandmother and my aunts have their names on this quilt. They grew up here,” local pride obvious in her voice.
The museum has a lot of local pride. Within the 1850 portion house museum, there are several oil paintings adorned on walls, painted by one of the original dwellers of the home, a M. E. Noble. There are period pieces of furniture, a spinning wheel from the local town of Choptank, Local Preston Fire Department antiques and equipment, an upstairs with child antiques and a bedroom with historic beds, and many antique items displayed in proper fashion for a home of this era. “The house is set up to look like a house from the 19th century,” Karen explained.
The Preston Historical Society is located at 167 Main St. in Preston and open the last 2 Saturdays of the month, from 10am-2pm and closed from December-March. They have a Halloween Haunted porch on Halloween night for trick-or-treaters, a Veteran’s celebration in November, a Santa’s Workshop at the end of November and more. For more information, see their website at www.prestonhistoricalsociety.com.
