Included in our tickets package for the trip to Blennerhassett Island was also admission of the the Blennerhassett Museum of Regional History. It’s part of the state park but actually located in downtown Parkersburg, West Virginia. We saved the museum for later in the day so we could tour the island in the relative cool of the morning. If we’d had the opportunity it would have been even better to have visited the museum one day and the island the next morning. The museum explores the cultural history of the area from the Native Americans to present. Some of our cousins might note some interesting surnames on the Chancellor Hotel Honor Roll. Roadside America notes that the Death Mask of Aaron Burr is in the museum collection. And Harman Blennerhassett’s telescope occupies a place of pride in the first floor gallery. Downstairs is the Stahl Collection, a fascinating later Nineteenth to early Twentieth Century collection of Native American artifacts collected by Professor Henry Stahl that even includes items from the Eighteenth Century occupation of what is now known as Blennerhassett Island but was occupied then by members of the Lenape/Delaware nation after being pushed out of their traditional territory by European settlers.
The visit to the museum was a nice conclusion to our stay at Blennerhassett RV Park in Belpre, Ohio, an opportunity for some family visiting, good eats, and some shopping as well as relaxing and the visit to learn about Blennerhassetts and the history of the area.
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