Tudor Hall museum in Bel Air spotlights Booth family history, volunteer-run programming

Tudor Hall in Bel Air traces its origins to the Booth family of 19th-century American theater and today operates as a museum overseen by the Junius B. Booth Society and county parks officials.

Tom Fink, president of the Junius B. Booth Society and director of Tudor Hall Museum, told Inside Harford County that the house — built as a retirement home for actor Junius Booth in the 1850s — now displays family artifacts and offers frequent talks and tours. "We only charge $5 for the tour," Fink said, noting that all museum work is volunteer-run and that proceeds go back into exhibits and maintenance.

The program places the site's history in context. Fink described Junius Booth's arrival in the United States in 1821, his theatrical career and the family's years at the property, where several Booth children were born. The show highlights dramatic links between the families and the Lincoln assassination: the younger John Wilkes Booth rehearsed on a balcony outside his bedroom at Tudor Hall, and Edwin Booth, John’s brother and a celebrated actor, once pulled Robert Todd Lincoln to safety from a moving train — an episode Fink described as an "unbelievable" historical irony.

The episode also documented local threads of abolition-era activity. Fink said members of the Booth household at times helped escaped enslaved people travel north toward Pennsylvania; he characterized those efforts as informal, noting they were not recorded as a formal Underground Railroad station and likely occurred intermittently in the 1820s and 1830s.

Tudor Hall’s collection includes original fixtures and theatrical memorabilia, Fink said: an entrance hall mirror that once hung in the house, family silverware and an unusual example of "stick furniture." The museum also displays a rubbing of the slab on Shakespeare’s grave that had hung in Edwin Booth’s club room; Fink described acquiring it at auction and returning it to the site.

The program relayed theatrical lore and anecdotes. Fink recounted a story that a condemned man once told Junius Booth, "I want you to have my skull and use that when you play Hamlet on stage"; Fink clarified the museum’s skull is not real and presented the tale as part of the site's theatrical history.

Architecturally, Fink identified Tudor Hall as Gothic Revival, saying Junius Booth selected a "parsonage" pattern from an 1847 English pattern book to guide the house’s design. He also noted a practical connection to Ford’s Theatre: James Gifford, who managed Tudor Hall's construction, and Edmund Spangler, a carpenter on the house, later had ties to Ford’s Theatre and knew John Wilkes Booth.

Fink traced the property's ownership after the Booth family, saying it later passed through private hands including Ella Mahoney (who lived there for seven decades), the Fox family and the Bakers before Harford County acquired the property at auction in 2006 and opened it more broadly to the public. He described the county’s role as maintaining the exterior and land while volunteers run tours and programming inside the house.

Looking ahead to 2026, Fink previewed several themed talks and programs exploring Lincoln, Shakespeare and other Booth-family topics and said more events are listed on the museum’s online pages. Viewers were directed to search for "Spirits of Tudor Hall" (one word) to find a Facebook page and a Blogspot with dates, speakers and details.

Fink emphasized stewardship and routine care: he said he checks the house weekly to monitor maintenance issues and to preserve the visitor experience. The episode closed with host Mark Vernerrelli thanking Fink and reminding viewers that Inside Harford County airs on Hartford TV.

The show presented Tudor Hall as a local museum that uses modest admission, volunteer labor and curated programming to preserve and interpret a complex family history for the Bel Air community and visitors.