Happy Golden Days of Yore

Visitors immerse themselves in the past at the Children's Museum at Rose Hill Manor Park.

Thomas Johnson, a prominent Colonial-era patriot and the first governor of Maryland, often received visitors in the gracious parlor of Rose Hill Manor, the Frederick home where he lived with his daughter and her family during the last years of his life.

On Saturday, Rose Hill Manor Park will welcome guests in the same parlor, but this time, most of the company will be children, and, instead of the old governor, "Magic Mike" Hotovy will be presiding, delighting his visitors with four "Holiday Magic" shows. The holiday-themed program -- which includes the magical appearance of a snowman and an explanation of how Santa gets down the chimney -- is part of Rose Hill Manor's weekend festivities, which usher in the Christmas season at this early-19th-century children's living history museum and park.

The imposing manor house, which was completed in 1792, will be decorated with dried herbs, flowers and other plants that were grown in Rose Hill's garden. A fan of apples and pineapples -- the latter much coveted in Colonial days -- will grace the front door. Mantels, hearths and stairways will feature natural greenery, and candles will twinkle on the windowsills.

Nancy Sweet, Rose Hill's program coordinator, has been busy for weeks, cutting out paper carrot noses and miniature black top hats and sorting buttons for children to make their own button snowman cards on Saturday. Fresh apple slices will be ready for kids to dip into colored wax, making a charming ornament that will look great on any modern Christmas tree.

Also on Saturday, Santa will visit the carriage museum, Sweet says, "and he might even have a treat for the children." The carriage museum, near the manor house on Rose Hill's expansive property, houses one of the region's premier collections of turn-of-the-20th-century carriages, wagons and sleighs.

Rose Hill Manor, just north of downtown Frederick, was once a 400-acre plantation. Ann and John Grahame, Thomas Johnson's daughter and son-in-law, along with about 20 slaves, farmed crops such as wheat, corn and rye. There were apple and peach orchards, as well as an extensive garden. The Grahames had horses, oxen, cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens. Today, a farm museum on the grounds has a variety of displays and artifacts related to late-19th- and early-20th-century agricultural practices and farm family life.

On Saturday, you can visit blacksmith Don Cornell, who plies his trade at the period forge behind the manor house. In the dim light of the blacksmith shop, Cornell crafts iron hooks and other items like the ones that were needed at Rose Hill in the early 19th century.

Sunday's program is called a "Holiday Hearthside Sampler" and will feature tours of the seven-room manor house, which includes an upstairs children's bedroom and the governor's study. Visitors will learn about early German and English Christmas-tree and holiday decorating traditions as well as Civil War-era seasonal decor. The carriage museum also will be open for tours.

Those who like sweets of any kind or shape can explore the various ways early Americans sweetened their food: with sugar cane, molasses, honey and maple syrup. "Visitors will be able to make their own mini sugar loaf," Sweet says. The cone-shaped loaves are then wrapped in tissue paper and stamped with a wax seal -- just as when Ann Grahame was mistress of Rose Hill Manor.

Kids will make a small, framed silhouette ornament to take home, and Rose Hill guides and volunteers will be on hand to trace and make larger silhouettes. Children can also try on old-time clothes (the manor house has a good supply of hats, vests, aprons, caps, kerchiefs and the like) and pretend they have traveled back to the early 1800s.

In the home's ample kitchen, visitors can learn more about candle dipping: double candles, in fact. Be sure to check out the large hearth and Colonial-era cooking utensils, as well as the adjacent beehive oven used for baking bread.

Rose Hill Manor, owned and operated by the Frederick County Department of Parks and Recreation, is regularly open to the public April through October. It is unusual in that it's a children's living history museum where kids are encouraged to interact with their historic surroundings, according to museum manager Jennifer Roth. This weekend's events, however, offer a hands-on opportunity to participate in the holiday preparations and seasonal traditions of Americans of long ago -- in a place where they actually lived.

HOLIDAY MAGIC AND HOLIDAY HEARTHSIDE SAMPLER Children's Museum at Rose Hill Manor Park, 1611 N. Market St., Frederick. Saturday's "Holiday Magic" program, from 10 to 3, is $5 for ages 17 and younger, $3 per adult, younger than 3 free. Magic shows are at 10:30, 11:30, 12:30 and 1:30. Sunday's "Holiday Hearthside Sampler" program, from 1 to 4, is $4 per person, younger than 3 free. 301-600-1650.http://www.rosehillmuseum.com.

Take Interstate 270 north to Frederick, where it becomes Route 15 north. Take the Motter Avenue exit and turn left on Motter Avenue. Turn left on 14th Street, then left on North Market Street. The entrance to Rose Hill Manor is on the left, just past Gov. Thomas Johnson High School.