As much as it pains me to post a negative review (something I hardly ever do), I feel it would be…read moredisingenuous to do anything else. Not a good experience today at all. We were vacationing in Ocean City and needed a break from the beach and traditional touristy activities. As great admirers of Harriet Tubman, my wife and I decided to visit the museum and were particularly excited to have a guided walking tour. I booked our tour online and we drove an hour and a half to Cambridge. As we pulled into the parking lot, the tour guide called and left a message saying she wasn't available. Apparently she had told the museum not to schedule tours for today, but their system had done so anyway. We went into the museum, trying to make the best of a frustrating situation. It was very limited and amateurish. That is not being critical, as it appears to be seriously underfunded and operated by volunteers. Just stating what we saw for others to be aware. it was basically a collection of printed materials with little, if any, original items unique to Harriet Tubman's lifetime. The museum director never greeted us. There were four or five people sitting and watching a PBS documentary. A couple of other groups walked in, looked around and then left. None of them were greeted either. Finally, I went up to the register and he asked if he could help me. I explained what had happened, and he chuckled, saying "Yeah, this happens sometimes. I guess the person who set up the system needs to fix that." He gave me $40 out of the cash register and that was it. No apologies or anything. After we left the museum, I texted the tour guide that he'd refunded our money only to find out that she had also done so online. We had to go back to the museum to give the $40 back. Total waste of a day of vacation. Again, I hate to be the grumpy guy leaving a bad review, but hopefully this will be helpful to someone somehow.

First off I must say thank you to the community and small group of individuals that put their…read moreheart, time and soul into operating and developing this museum! This museum is special and it feels like you are literally stepping back into time. There is so much information and artifacts about the life of Harriet Tubman and her family, the rich history of Cambridge and the pertaining era, and visual images to bring all of this historic information to light. There is so much more to the life of Harriet Tubman than the underground railroad, she literally put her life on the line to save others. She was a warrior and a savior! This museum also highlights upon other notable people who followed in Harriet's footsteps, or who were inspired by her path and noble work. Being a young Black American male and being able to see such rich accomplishments that have paved the way for other Black Americans today in living color was empowering. I recommend that EVERYONE visit this historic gem! It will change your life! I made sure to give a donation after I was finished viewing. It takes about 30-45 minutes to view everything depending on your intake method. I do love that the museum is just the right size, as it allows visitors to take everything in. After visiting, take the time to checkout and enjoy the beautiful historic downtown Cambridge!

It had a very eclectic collection of artifacts from the 1800s to the different World Wars…read more Recomment stopping if you're a history buff.

I enjoyed this museum when I was younger. I've always been a history fan, so anything history, I'm…read moreexcited to go to!

Amazing little gem of a museum. Well designed and constructed, and our hosts that day were the…read morewonderful Karen and Tilly. So much information shared in such an interesting way! Now we know what the sticks in the water of the bay are! (I won't tell) And along with the nautical ephemera, there were prehistoric animal bones on display! Nice little gift shop, too.

Bottom Line: A delightful museum about Tilghman Island and life in the Chesapeake Bay region that…read moreis a must-visit site for first time visitors to the area. I am fascinated with the unique and rich subculture of the Chesapeake Bay region. Like the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, The Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum in Chesapeake Beach and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, the Tilghman Watermen's Museum tells the history of life on and around the bay. As the name implies, the museum also recounts history specific to Tilghman Island. What I like most about the museum is that it is located inside the beautifully restored historic Lee house. The historic home is built in the "W" architecture style which is an offshoot of Victorian architecture. This style is unique to Tilghman Island. In fact, there were only 13 of them built and only seven survive. I enjoyed learning about this specific architectural style so much that I was very pleased to be able to purchase a Christmas ornament that features the Lee House. Also, we enjoyed driving around the island and identifying other W style homes. There are various exhibits in the museum including a rotating exhibit that changes annually in addition to the permanent exhibits. Currently, the rotating exhibit is about waterfowling in the area as Tilghman Island is located along the Atlantic Flyway - the north-south migratory route for birds. My father has hunted ducks and geese on the Eastern Shore his entire life and I have studied the Atlantic Flyway a bit but I still learned something new, albeit a bit horrifying about big gun boats. The permanent exhibits cover fishing, crabbing, oystering, canning and boat building. I really appreciated the pound net model because I'd only seen them from the water and never could quite grasp how they worked. The exhibit that I spent the most time marveling at was about the Tilghman Packing Company. I can almost imagine being there - I can hear the boats arriving with their bounty, I can see the workers hustling and I can smell the bizarrely delightful and familiar salty, musty smell of aging, empty oyster shells piling up. The exhibit that was most surprising was about beloved Tilghman Island resident Bill Cummings. He was a commercial waterman by trade but had a natural talent for painting. He was self-taught and his work documents a time lost on the island. I assumed the museum was self-guided but that wasn't the case. We were accompanied for most of our visit. At times it was hard to immerse myself in the exhibits for that reason. My husband's take was that the docents were really excited to have us there and wanted to make sure we had a good time and got all of our questions answered. Hopefully that was the case and not that they thought we'd be disrespectful if not closely supervised. I really appreciate all of the hardwork that has gone into restoring the Lee House and creating the museum's collections and exhibits. Tilghman Island has a proud history that they graciously share. Admission is donation based and it is certainly worthy of a donation. You can drop cash in their box or donate via your credit card. I really hope people will support this neat, quaint, local museum!

I cannot believe it took me nearly a decade of living in Maryland to finally visit the State House…read morewhich is the oldest legislative building in North America. It easy and free to tour almost any day and it is nice to see all the history here. They have the more modern (but still historic) current chambers as well as the original historic ones open to tour. Looking forward to coming back, hopefully with friends and family.

I definitely enjoy visiting state houses / state capitals, and the one in Annapolis MD was a nice…read moreone to check out. Easy access off the first floor. Quick security check and scan, then you get a badge and are on your way. There are numerous rooms to check out, some even have interactive touch screen features, that was kind of neat to see what it was like hundreds of years ago. The architecture is neat. The staircase is long but manageable, but there is a tiny elevator that you can take as well. The grounds outside are nicely manicured and there are some things to see as well including cannons and a little building that is quite old but packed with history. Annapolis was a fun place to visit and if you do, check out the state house.

A great gem of a house museum with a fabulous collection of decorative arts. The house itself is a…read moremasterpiece of 18th Century Palladian architectural design and execution. The collections of furniture, paintings, porcelain, silverware and a myriad of other items show an important historical record of the times. This museum is well worth a visit.

The tour guide (name Don, I believe?) was FANTASTIC. He's very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about…read morethe home. Its history is wonderfully preserved within its walls and there's beautifully decorated rooms during the Christmas season. Adult tickets are $7, but $6 with AAA card. Make sure to check in on Yelp and get 50% off admission!

Bottom Line: A very small museum that takes visitors back in time when beach goers arrived at…read moreChesapeake Beach via rail and gives insight to the resorts and attractions that used to be here. Imagine wearing a wool suit or Victorian dress in the middle of the summer in Washington DC when it was 90 degrees with 100% humidity and air conditioning was very rare. For the middle to upper middle class Washingtonians in the early 1900s a way to beat the heat was by taking a thirty mile train ride to the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay where the water was clear (yes, back then you could be in chest deep water and see your toes) and the breezes were cool. This museum pays tribute to the Chesapeake Beach Railroad that transported beach goers to the Chesapeake Beach resort town from the early 1900s to the 1930s. The museum building itself is the original train station of the Chesapeake Beach Railroad. Before there were cars there was railroads and this station was and is located just a few hundred yards from where the Chesapeake Bay meets the shore. The train station has been restored and consists of a few rooms and the outdoor platform. The museum has lots of old vintage pictures of the train and resort as well as various artifacts, some of which I've captured in my photos: I really enjoyed the roughly 15 minute video about the railway. The video covers the route of the railway including the various stops between DC and the beach. The video also talks about the various locomotives and train cars that served the line. I also enjoyed learning about the building of the track and brides and opposition from the behemoth Pennsylvania Railroad.

The Museum is housed at The Chesapeake Resort and Spa and great for children and adults. The images…read moreand information here is well worth taking a look

Amazing museum. It is quite affordable and has so much history to learn about the history of…read moreAnnapolis such as how it was a temporary US Capital as well as all the diverse groups here such as African Americans, Women, and Jewish Americans. Came here in 4th of July along with other historic sites as part of a Historic Annapolis package and they had a small guitar exhibit too.

I was expecting a Maryland State museum in Annapolis, but instead I found this museum of historic…read moreAnnapolis. When I arrived the staff at the front desk was very welcoming and friendly. I ended up chatting with them for a while before I left. This is a fairly new museum, so I don't know why Yelp has it attached to some reviews from 2018 that must reference a different museum. The visit starts off with an introductory video. From there you can head up the stairs to see 2 more floors of exhibits. It's a small building so it's not a lot of space. But the space is filled with lots of cool artifacts and information chronicling the history of Annapolis. I didn't even know it was once the capital of the country. I like that the museum doesn't gloss over the part slavery played in Maryland history. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Annapolis.

I wish we'd had enough time and energy for a full day visit, so we could properly convey all that…read morethe Arboretum has to offer, but we were limited to a half day following the "Flight to Freedom" walk while we followed both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass' historical paths, a joint program of the arboretum and local historians to try to sort of simulate the outdoor challenges of escaping enslaved persons. As such, and in early spring, our appreciation was limited to one trail and the amenities around the visitor center, but our appreciation and admiration for the Adkins for even this bare introduction to the extensive grounds is nevertheless deep just from the one visit and left us eager to return on another day to explore the rest of the trails. The front desk person was lovely and kind, and oriented us after we explained why we were there. (The admission price here is tiny; I recommend donating a little extra on top of it. It's a great bargain either way.) They have these old-school mini-walkmen-style audio guides that were helpful but which badly need to be updated to the 3rd decade of the 21st century. They're hard to navigate and harder to hear. Having a borrowed audio guide feels like something from the 1950s; why not just make it available on cell phone, with the text available online or via an app? That was the one clumsy part of the Flight to Freedom path-- only one person at a time could listen to the very low volume on the headphones. While we speculate perhaps they thought this approach would preserve the quiet for other visitors, perhaps a simple imprecation to keep volume low on cell phones would suffice...? I can't think of a good reason not to make the jump to current museum practice. (That plus it's not very disability-friendly if you're hearing impaired or have fine motor problems.) When we could hear it, the audio guide was excellent, including the "bonus" tracks of first person escapee narratives. The content only needs a better delivery mechanism. The arboretum itself was quite alive -- we saw a heron in the woods, ID'd about 20 different species of birds in total either by sight or with Merlin, ran across a blooming hawthorne that was simply riotous with honeybees merrily sucking nectar out, and enjoyed the early blooms. It was a fun time, where one can see through the underbrush but also see the buds and early leaves and many blossoms out. There were also some programs for young children going on, and it's very gratifying to see the place alive with visitors. The little gift shop is fun, and while there's no café (one can understand why) it would be very tempting to bring a picnic, which I suspect (but do not know) is frowned upon. The inviting water feature out front with the signature chairs was a nice place to stop and rest, while we listened to the frogs croaking and somehow avoided early season insect pests.

Great place to visit, it has a visitor center, kids activities, nice trails gardens and much more!…read moreVisit any season of the year!! A truly beautiful place