Mission
The Shady Side Rural Heritage Society operates a museum complex located at the historic Captain Salem Avery House in Shady Side - a watermen's community on Maryland's West River. The Society's mission is to preserve, collect, document, and share local history and culture, using its historic property as a lens through which to interpret the community's stories with a focus on the mid 19th century to the present. As an educational and cultural center for the local community and the general public, the Society fosters an understanding of the social, cultural, economic, and environmental transformations that have shaped the Chesapeake Bay's Western Shore since prehistoric times.