On September 7th, Cambridge held a special event titled A Day of Resilience, honoring Harriet Tubman. It was also the official ribbon cutting of the mural located on the exterior wall of the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center located at 424 Race Street. Recently, the Spy spent some time with the man who designed and painted the mural, Michael Rosato.

Rosato’s studio is located in Cambridge, a couple of doors down from the mural he created. But to call him a local artist would not be giving full credit to the magnitude of his work, which includes (to name just a few) the Oklahoma City National Memorial in Oklahoma City, OK, Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Tx., the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, the Headquarters of Bacardi in San Juan, Puerto Rico, etc. His website catalogs the public and private spaces that show his talents. The creativity alone is worth a look.

As prolific as his work has been, Rosato didn’t set out to be an artist. His dream was to be a fighter pilot. Like his dad, who was killed during the Vietnam War. But then life threw a curveball. On a trip to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Rosato stood in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta and felt a deep emotional response that he’d never felt. He knew then that he needed to pursue art, create beauty, and evoke the feeling he had experienced in others.

That was around 28 years ago, and no, he didn’t go to school to study art. Instead, he says, he learned from the greatest teachers. “I taught myself how to paint by going to the National Gallery of Art. If I didn’t know how to paint a tree, I’d look at how Hudson River School painters painted a tree. If I didn’t know how to do a sky, I’d go see how John Constable handled it. So, my art school was the masters of art on the wall. Having access to free art, like at the Smithsonian, was instrumental in the development of what I do.”

As is not unusual in these types of stories, fate stepped in. A chance conversation while getting his hair cut, led to an opportunity to assist an artist who was painting a commissioned mural for a Saudi princess in Roslyn, VA. Even though Rosato had never done this type of work before, as soon as he was shown how, he said: “I can do that. And then that was it. I fell in love with painting. It was after a year working with him, I went on my own and boom…”

That boom, for our area, of course, was the Harriet Tubman mural, which was commissioned and made possible with the support of the Maryland State Arts Council, Dorchester Center for the Arts, Alpha Genesis CDC, the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center, and Downtown Cambridge. The 14×28 foot mural portrays a historical icon that wanted her story told. Rosato would be the storyteller.

He chose the three-dimensional, trompe l’oeil effect to compel you, as a viewer, to want to interact with Tubman, as she reaches through the wall with an outstretched hand. “It made it a lot easier to paint,” says Rosato, “when I realized that the gesture and the face had to express: ‘take this hand, now we’re going to freedom.’ I wanted her to have a very strong, quiet strength. That plays in with coming up with a character of the person that I was painting.”

Working with pictures of both an older and a younger Tubman, he created a 30-year-old version, full of vigor. “That strength, that superhuman strength–the 30-year-old attacking the world,” he said. “That feeling that nothing can stop you, that comes with the naïveté of youth. But at the same time, the incredible heroic nature of that kind of person and that kind of spirit.”

No small feat that Rosato wanted to portray, but one he knew he achieved when, once again, fate intervened and showed him he was on the right track. As Rosato remembers it, he was nearing the end of the two weeks it took him to complete the mural. He had worked ten hours that day and decided to stop, leaving Tubman’s outstretched hand unpainted. Tracy Lynndee, owner of Maiden Maryland, passed by the unfinished mural with her 3-year old granddaughter, Lovie. The young girl reached out and touched Tubman’s hand. A photo of that moment was taken, posted on social media, and it went viral. Suddenly, even those who had never heard about the mural, or Cambridge, or Rosato, or even Tubman, felt a connection.

The circle was complete.Unlike Michelangelo, who never got to see Rosato’s reaction to his sculpture, Rosato, has been able to watch the emotional response the mural elicits in others. Like the 80-year-old woman who thanked him and started crying. Or the African American lawyer who told him he had ‘done it right.’ “Every time I’m there, says Rosato, “if people are there, something new happens, and it’s really amazing. And it happens daily. So, it really has resonated. Harriet Tubman encapsulates the American concept of heroism. She is definitely an American hero. There is also something kind of neat about public art and the fact that this is on the side of the Tubman Museum Educational Center. It provides an opportunity for you to go in and learn the story, and you start to realize what a remarkable individual this was.”

As for the future, Rosato is about to start painting 15,000 square feet of space at the United States Marine Corps Museum in DC. He sees similarities to the Tubman mural: “I’m working with these marines, who are just incredible people. They possess the spirit to sacrifice self for others. You start to realize that the character of people like Harriet Tubman, like these marines, it’s something special. She represents the greater power that is willing to lift you out of your darkness. We all want that hand.”

In historic Chestertown, just across the Chester River, on a tree-lined street where both visitors and residents can be seen enjoying a leisurely stroll, sits an unassuming building in the center of town. Step through the door, and you find yourself in a time warp. This is the White Swan Tavern.

Although not always knows by this name, White Swan is a familiar landmark since pre-Revolutionary days. Currently owned by the Havemeyer family, the inn was conscientiously restored and now operates as a bed-and-breakfast country inn. It is also used for small conferences, weddings, and receptions, as well as afternoon teas and other special events.

On arrival, we were met by Sarah Crump, manager and head innkeeper. “I do the taxes,” she said, “and sometimes I also do the beds.” What she doesn’t take credit for is that she’s also part history teacher, part tour guide, and full enthusiast of this walk into another time and another era. As we would learn, the six available bedrooms, and some of the rooms in the house, are named after the various personalities who owned or contributed to its ‘soul.’ She would tell us their stories.

Parts of the Tavern date back to 1725, we were told, when it was then a one-room dwelling used as the home and workshop of John Lovegrove, known as the Shoemaker of Chestertown. As the town grew, the smell of Lovegrove’s tanning pits, forced the townspeople to kick him out (these tanning pits would prove to be of much importance in the future). This portion of the house was, at one time, moved off of its foundation and used as an unattached summer kitchen. Today, returned to its original location, it is one of the inn’s bedrooms and known as The John Lovegrove Kitchen. It has the most distinct 18th century feel with a large walk-in fireplace, brick floor, and open beam ceiling.

In 1733, Joseph Nicholson bought the property and added to the home. This addition is the front portion of the present structure. The Nicholsons, who were a respected Royal Naval family, had three sons, two of whom had impressive military careers. “And then there was James Nicholson,” says Crump. “James Nicholson is the infamous captain who ran the Virginia aground and abandoned it. He worked for the British and lost a ship to the Americans. He worked for the Americans and lost a ship to the British. He then sassed himself into a duel with Alexander Hamilton, that he backed out of. So that was James, born here. Not our proudest tie to history, but you know, we’ve got one.” The elder Nicholson left two items in his will, which can be seen in this section of the house: an escritoire and a grandfather clock (circa the 1750s).

John Bordley bought the property in 1793 and expanded the back half of it, converting the home to a tavern. For this distinction, one of the bedrooms carries his name. Bordley sold the inn to Isaac Cannell in 1801.

Cannell is considered the tavern’s first innkeeper and has the breakfast and tea room named after him. Afternoon tea served from 3 to 5 pm daily, is one of White Swan’s amenities and available to anyone who rings the front bell, whether or not they are guests. The room’s most noteworthy feature is an antique heavy wooden chair set in the corner of the room. The chair is wide both in the seating and sides and tall in the back. “It was something that would go in front of the fire for heat,” says Crump. This was also, very likely, a chair for ‘fine ladies’ because a ‘fine lady’ should not see what goes on in a tavern environment. So, they put blinders on the chair, set it right in front of the fire and women were told to look straight ahead. We have put it in the corner, and the ‘fine lady’ can see whatever she likes from here!”

After Cannell, various other owners and innkeepers ran the tavern and lent their names to the current bedrooms: Thomas Peacock Room, Wilmer Room, Sterling Suite, and T.W. Eliason Victorian Suite.

Of these, the most interesting is Thomas Wilson Eliason, who bought the inn, changed it into a grocery store and in 1860 gutted parts of the building. Says Crump: “[The family] were merchants in everything except hospitality. They cut a hole in the side of the wall, and the only way to get to the second floor was a new stairway they had to build to get to it. This now exists as a lead-in from our Bordley room into the bathroom.”

Unlike the rest of the inn which is in the Colonial style, the Ellison Suite is Victorian. It’s on the second floor and wraps around from the back to the front of the inn. The furniture in this room is distinct for its size. Or rather its height. It is low to the ground and, as explained by Crump, is called Victorian nursing furniture. “Women were so tightly corseted, they couldn’t actually bend down to play with their kids. So, they would sit down on the low chairs and could play with toddlers of all ages. Instead of taking the corsets off, they chopped all the furniture down.”

One more thing and worthy of mention here since it’s been written about in books and articles: Ghosts. The White Swan has its share of them. “Especially in the Lovegrove room,” says Crump. We actually had the Delaware paranormal research group come in and do an investigation, and they got voices in the Lovegrove and in our Eliason room, and some sounds out of the Wilmer as well.”

Until 1977, the building existed as shops and offices and included the P&E News Agency. The restoration of the building by the Havemeyer family began in 1978 as an archeological dig.

This became one of the most historically significant contributions to the area, as over 70,000 artifacts were recovered, many of them thrown away as trash in John Lovegrove’s leftover tanning pits.

Although most of these found objects are on display at the University of Delaware, a selected few are in the inn’s tavern room, now dedicated as a museum. Behind a glass wall are pieces of stemware, North Devon sgraffito glazed bowls, various pipes, and even chamber pots. Most significant is a ‘charger’ with a bird on it and a 1730 date. From this piece, the White Swan earned its current name.

We asked Crump about her favorite item in the house, thinking she would point to a specific relic or an antique furniture piece. Instead, she took us to the bottom of one of the stairwells and pointed upward to where an oversized American flag hung on the wall. She explained, “This flag is not colonial at all, but it belonged to Louisine Havemeyer. And Louisine was many things. She was a patron of many great artists. She was a good friend of Mary Cassatt and Mary guided her purchases. And in that way, she ended up patronizing Edgar Degas and Monet and Manet, and lots of French impressionists. But she was also a suffragette and one of the founding members of the National Women’s Party fighting to get women the right to vote.

That was the flag they used for marching and displays. She was actually jailed for five days in 1919 for burning an effigy of Woodrow Wilson. Yeah, she’s a little firecracker. She’s written a few memoirs of that time. She was a very admirable woman, and it is her great-grandson who now owns the Swan, which is how we were lucky enough to get that.”That fact was just one of the many morsels of the past we got. There are so many more stories to tell, so many more opportunities to understand life as it was lived so many years ago. Sarah Crump hopes you want to hear them. Stop by, she tells us. We’ll take you on a tour. Come and have tea with us. Come and stay at the inn.

Before we left, ready to walk through the door that would lead us back to our cars and the politics of the day, we realized what White Swan lacked in each of their bedrooms. There was no TV. We looked to Sarah Crump for the answer. “We’ll give you a mini-fridge,” she told us. “You can snack, but we won’t let you stress.” Not a bad compromise.

For more information about The White Swan Tavern go here.