New to the Museum but In Fact Very Old

We had three different donors bring in some very interesting objects to the museum this past couple of weeks. Varying in time and scope, they illustrate a nice cross section of life in Middlesex through the centuries.

Looking the farthest back in time is an early 18^th Century English Wine Decanter made of dark olive glass. It has a concave bottom and a thin neck with lip. It was found in the Rappahannock River some 90 years ago by a young boy. His daughter (now in her 70s) brought us three boxes of glass from his scavenging collection that he kept in the garage as he grew up. He added to it as he continued to discover glass in our waters in the Wake area throughout his life.

Another piece from that box is an early 1900s Aqua hand-blown glass decanter with a whirl top decoration on the neck. It’s from the art deco period. There are bubbles in the glass consistently throughout the piece from being mouth blown. The bottom has a pontil rod scar where the iron rod was attached to the bottom of the hot glass bottle. Etched into the glass on the underside of the bottle is the word Spain. Interesting what one can find in our waters around this peninsula.

With a hat tip to our agrarian heritage, also from the early 1900s, another donor brought in a canning label from Irene’s Choice Hand Packed Tomatoes from M. P. Grinels in Bushy. It is covered in lovely illustrations of the red tomato beauties that thrived in our sandy soil.

From Packers State Bank in Wake we have a 1929 savings deposit book and paper money wallet. Interesting, what with the stock market crash in October of that year. The last deposit was made on July 23^rd in this little booklet.

And with everyone heading back to school lately, we have some education related pieces as donations including the graduation program from MHS commencement of 1921.

The museum was given a collection of 12 yearbook/annuals from Middlesex High School from 1969 through 2026. Each year captured in full detail to cross reference with others from past years.

And our last piece from a different donor is a round wooden shipping container wrapped in metal wire used on the steamboats. Written across the bottom in cursive is Urbanna, Va. It would pre-date the Chesapeake-Potomac hurricane of August 1933 that wiped out that shipping industry and brought commerce to its knees in our coastal area.

Telling the story of Middlesex County’s history is our mission. Our museum’s collections are always growing and our exhibits expanding because of generous donors sharing with us. Please stop by the museum and see what’s “new.”