Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

The House

History

The Glen Burnie Historic House as it looked when Julian Wood Glass Jr. inherited his father's interests in the site in 1952. Photo courtesy of The Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, Handley Regional Library, Winchester, Virginia.

 

Pictured in text

Julian Wood Glass Jr. around 1955, the time he acquired full ownership of the Glen Burnie Historic House.

 

QuickFact

James Wood was a friend of George Washington's. The two men fought together in the French and Indian War and Wood played an important role in Washington's first election to public office. Watch for the portrait of George Washington painted by Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860) during your tour of the house!

The Glen Burnie Historic House traces its historic significance to surveyor James Wood, who settled on this land in the early 1700s and then donated portions of his homestead to establish the city of Winchester in 1744. His son Robert likely constructed the central portion of the Glen Burnie Historic House in the 1790s. The house’s ownership passed through generations of Wood and then Glass families until Julian Wood Glass Jr. acquired it in 1955.

Aided by R. Lee Taylor, Glass transformed the house into a country retreat, and created the Glen Burnie Gardens. Prior to his death in 1992, Glass created the Glass-Glen Burnie Foundation and charged it with opening the site as a museum.

The house and gardens opened to the public in 1997. In 2005, the addition of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley provided the anchor that transformed this historic house and landscape into a year-round regional history museum complex.

Pictured at top: The William Wood Glass family at Glen Burnie around 1895.