Historic St. Mary’s City ‘Haunted Ship’
Historic St. Mary’s City, MD – Even though the air was quite crisp Saturday evening, Oct. 22, a record total of 785 anxious trick-or-treaters and guests stood in line to ‘walk the plank’ just to see 17th-Century ‘haunted ship’ (The Dove) interactive exhibit of the Historic St. Mary’s City, Museum of History and Archeology.
This year’s amazing success could be attributed changes made in marketing tactics, timing of this year’s event and the fact that Historic St. Mary’s City has the only haunted ship in the area, shared Director of Education Peter Friesen. Better use of social media, word of mouth and having the event the weekend before Halloween.
2016 marks the third and busiest year yet. Last year, there were approximately 400 attendees, but a month before the event, planners knew from the RSVP list, greater interest had been sparked. During a phone interview, Friesen shared, “Having this event so many days before Halloween encourages costume wearing multiple times, which is great for the kids since parents spend a lot of money on them.” Some guests came dressed in costumes with bags ready to receive their ‘potion or portion’ of candy as they walked the last spider-webbed mile to the ship.
Even though, some early arrivers had to wait in line for up to an hour, they received candy and were entertained by staff and volunteers dressed as ghosts, pirates, witches and more… The Dove’s crew and made the entire event come to life not only with elaborate decorations and full make-up and dramatic costumes, but by also offering face painting and theatrical acting.
Public Programs Manager, Sharol Yeatman explained that Historic St. Mary’s City wanted to do something festive that was free for two reasons. First, they wanted offer an activity to families in the more remote areas of the county who may find it harder to get out for Halloween to go house to house. Secondy, the staff sees this as something fun, entertaining, family friendly and interactive of course.
Historic St. Mary’s City’s has become well known for being a hands-on interactive museum with many tours and programs priced accordingly.
Yeatman, cheerfully welcomed the never-ending stream of guests as they walked up onto the deck of the ship. She shared that this is often the only opportunity many locals get to come to the museum each year, because of the pricing of many programs.
The “Haunted Ship” of Historic St. Mary’s was truly a successful community event.
Historic St. Mary’s City is a museum of living history and archaeology on the site of Maryland’s first capital in beautiful, tidewater Southern Maryland.
For more information about HSMC contact the Visitor Center at info@digshistory.org, 240-895-4990, or 800-SMC-1634.
