In November of 2023, we lost a true lover of history and American culture. Jay Hurley passed away in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Out of college he traveled the world — working in many places — but in the late 70’s, returned to Shepherdstown to take over O’Hurley’s General Store — built by his father more than a hundred years ago. The store is still a wonderful place to visit and buy all sorts of things — a throwback to the days when whatever you needed you could find at the general store. Now it’s much more of a gift shop —and a big hit come Christmas.

We imagine the best of O’Hurley’s was always a visit with Jay. A colorful figure, loaded with stories — and ready to answer any question about Shepherdstown. Time with him was always a wonderful adventure. When visitors to the store asked where was he born — he simply said with a smile, “upstairs.”

He was one of those colorful figures that just dabbles in all sorts of things. He helped organize construction of a model of a steamboat that was first built in Shepherdstown and run on the Potomac River in 1787.  A lot of people think Robert Fulton invented the Steamboat, but it was actually James Rumsey — at the urging of George Washington.

 Jay helped form the Rumseian Society  in the 1980s and construct a replica of the Rumsey steamboat in 1987. The boat was constructed in the shop in the back of O’Hurley’s General Store. It was launched on the 200th anniversary of the original boat. The replica is housed in a small building at the Historic Shepherdstown Museum. 

Here is a brief interview with Jay about that project that we will eventually run in a program we are working on about the old steamboats.

But one of his most remarkable gifts to the community happens in the back room of the store — as all sorts of musicians gather once a week and jam to some of the folk music you would have heard here in this mountains — and in Ireland and Scotland long ago.

Anyone can play at this community jam session, and what’s most remarkable, it’s gone on — uninterrupted — for 43 years. Even during Covid, they never missed a Thursday night session. Though many of those nights there was no audience and many times just one or two musicians. Jay brought the hammer dulcimer to life — surrounded by fiddles, mandolins, guitars, harps and other instruments of the old country. Here you hear the old roots of the music that immigrants brought to Appalachia. You can see Jay and others play their music and tell their story in our short video Music Man.