How would you like to have a volunteer gig that gives you time to sit on a summer day on the front porch of a lighthouse and look out onto the peaceful Potomac River? How would you like a volunteer opportunity that allows you to share the history and culture of the area with visitors from all over the country? How would you like to get to that volunteer opportunity a couple of days this summer in a water taxi ride on the river?
All of those opportunities are available for volunteers with the non-profit St. Clement’s Hundred, which is in charge of running tours of a replica of Blackistone Lighthouse on St. Clement’s Island, the site of Maryland’s founding in 1634.
The organization, through a massive volunteer effort, reconstructed the lighthouse which burned down in 1956 after standing on the island as a beacon for navigators of the river since 1851. The replica was opened in 2008.
The lighthouse museum tells the story of Josephine McWilliams Freeman, who was lighthouse keeper from 1875 to 1912. Her granddaughter Mary Josephine Mattingly’s donation of $5,000 provided the seed money for the lighthouse’s replica to be built.
The island is now owned by the state of Maryland and operated as a state park by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The St. Clement’s Island Museum on the mainland overlooking the island is operated by the St. Mary’s County Department of Recreation and Parks Museum Division.
Beverly Bailey Wood, president of St. Clement’s Hundred, said her group’s mission is “to partner with DNR to do whatever we can to preserve St. Clement’s Island.”
The volunteer opportunities were explained on Thursday, April 11 at a Volunteer Appreciation Meeting at the St. Peter’s conference room of the Dorsey Law Firm in Leonardtown. The lighthouse is open the first full weekend of the months of June-September and every Saturday from 10 a.m. to about 3:30 p.m. and also during the Blessing of the Fleet in October.
Museum Division Director Debra Pence told the reception attendees that more than 6,000 people visited the lighthouse last year. Visitors come by the water taxi from the mainland and by their own boat. They come from the local area, around Maryland and from other states and overseas. Some are tourists who regularly visit lighthouses. Some of them visit during national Lighthouse Day in August.
Volunteers are given orientation materials about the lighthouse and its history. Wood says the story of Josephine McWilliams Freeman is a particularly compelling one that is told in the lighthouse exhibits. She is considered an independent woman before her time.
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