St. Mary’s County Government’s Museum Division will host free family events and exhibits at two of its sites during the 2025 holiday season, offering visitors opportunities for tours, shopping and seasonal activities.
The division oversees Piney Point Lighthouse Museum in Coltons Point, St. Clement’s Island Museum in Colton Point and Old Jail Museum in Leonardtown. Piney Point will feature a Holiday Family Open House on Sunday, Nov. 30, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with family activities and refreshments. Admission stands free for the day, and the museum store will open for holiday purchases. A Holiday Exhibit follows daily from Nov. 30 through Dec. 31, during regular 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours, except closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Adult tickets cost $7, with $3.50 rates for seniors, students and military personnel; children 5 and younger enter free.
At Old Jail Museum, free access continues daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, as part of Leonardtown’s First Friday initiative. Tours cover the site’s history, and the museum store stocks unique gifts.
St. Clement’s Island Museum will skip events this year amid construction on a new facility but keeps its store open daily in the annex building near the parking lot for shoppers.
Nov. 30 also marks Museum Store Sunday across all three locations, aligning with a national initiative where more than 700 museum stores provide curated selections of books, jewelry, children’s items, home accessories and local artisan works. Purchases support museum programs, and the online Friends Museum Store operates 24 hours daily with contactless delivery and free shipping outside the area
These events build on annual traditions in St. Mary’s County, a region rooted in colonial and maritime heritage along the Potomac River. Piney Point Lighthouse Museum, established in 1836 as the oldest lighthouse on the Potomac, preserves a keeper’s quarters and features a World War II submarine exhibit alongside historic boats and a 6-acre park with beach access and kayak launches. The site, 14 miles upriver from the Chesapeake Bay, draws families for its blend of history and outdoor space, with the holiday open house emphasizing early shopping amid lighthouse tours. Similar gatherings in prior years, such as the 2023 Holiday Family Open House, included craft stations and light displays that attracted hundreds from Southern Maryland communities.
Old Jail Museum, constructed in 1876 from granite blocks and brick, replaced an earlier 1858 structure deemed inadequate. It served until 1945 as the sixth of eight jails in county history, linked to the nation’s oldest sheriff’s office. The building retains original upstairs cells that segregated prisoners and holds designation on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, highlighting escapes and local abolitionist networks in the 19th century. Daily tours during December explain incarceration practices, from solitary confinement to community labor, while the store offers reproductions of period artifacts like handcuff replicas and historical texts. Integration with First Friday events connects the site to Leonardtown’s monthly street festivals, where artisans and vendors line Washington Street.
St. Clement’s Island Museum commemorates the March 25, 1634, landing of English colonists aboard the Ark and Dove, marking Maryland’s founding amid interactions with the Piscataway people. The facility interprets colonial voyages, river heritage and the lost Blackistone Lighthouse through artifacts and replicas. Construction delays the full reopening, but the annex store provides access to maritime-themed items, including nautical charts and Piscataway-inspired crafts. The museum’s mainland location overlooks the island, a state park accessible by boat, underscoring St. Mary’s role as Maryland’s birthplace with exhibits on early governance under the 1632 charter.
Museum Store Sunday, launched nationally in 2017, promotes nonprofit retail as a holiday alternative to big-box chains, with proceeds funding preservation and education. In St. Mary’s, the stores emphasize regional makers, such as Patuxent River woodworkers and Leonardtown potters, alongside titles on county lore like the Calvert family’s proprietary rule. The online platform, managed by the Friends of St. Clement’s Island and Piney Point Lighthouse Museums, extends reach to out-of-state relatives, stocking items from $5 ornaments to $50 engraved keepsakes.
St. Mary’s County Museum Division, formed in the 1970s to safeguard public sites, operates under county recreation guidelines that prioritize accessible history. Annual holiday programming, dating to at least 2020, adapts to visitor patterns in a county of waterfront hamlets and tobacco fields, where events like these draw from Calvert and Charles counties. Past iterations, including a 2022 Retro Holiday Exhibit at Piney Point with vintage decorations, combined free entry with paid lighthouse climbs to balance budgets. Construction at St. Clement’s, funded by a $4.5 million state grant in 2023, aims for a 2026 debut with expanded interactive displays on Indigenous-settler relations.
For updates on hours, programs and admissions, follow the sites on Facebook: St. Clement’s Island Museum at Facebook.com/SCIMuseum, Old Jail Museum at Facebook.com/TheOldJailMuseum and Piney Point at Facebook.com/1836Light. These gatherings provide low-cost entry to St. Mary’s layered past, from 17th-century arrivals to 20th-century coastal defense, fostering family connections in a region where history shapes daily tides.
