Mystic Seaport

As many of you probably know, I recently wrote about Mystic Aquarium. What some of you might not know is that it is not the only unique place in Mystic, Connecticut. This village is also home to Mystic Seaport Museum, which is the largest maritime museum in the United States, is a total of 19 acres, has a large collection of ships and boats, and a recreation of a 19th-century seaport village. In this post, I will be talking about its history and its many features in hopes that it will convince all of you reading to go check it out!

The museum was first established in 1929, when it was called the Marine Historical Association. One of the founders was Mary Stillman Harkness, who was the daughter of the only surviving child of Mystic shipbuilder Thomas Stillman Greenman. Harkness originally donated land that belonged to her grandfather, and in 1945, she donated his house to the museum as well. The museum was also one of the first living history museums in the United States, as it has a collection of buildings and craftsmen to show how people used to live. 

One of the main features here is the ships and boats that are on display. I will now be going over each of them and sharing some information about them. The first four that I will be talking about have also been recognized by the United States government as National Historic Landmarks. 

The first ship on display is called Emma C. Berry, which is a well smack. The purpose of well smacks was to keep the catch of fish alive in an internal water-filled compartment known as a wet wall.

The next ship on display is a fishing schooner called L.A. Dunton

The next ship on display is Charles W. Morgan, which is the only surviving wooden whaling ship from 2,700 ships that operated in the United States whaling fleet. 

The next ship on display is called Sabino, which is an island steamer. It is also a coal-powered steamboat and a working exhibit, which makes it America’s oldest regularly operating coal-powered steamboat.

The next ship on display is a sandbagger sloop called Annie, which was used for competitive racing. 

The next ship on display is a coastal schooner called Australia, which was designed to carry freight in shallow coastal water. 

The next ship on display is a cat boat called Breck Marshall. Cat boats were designed specifically for pleasure and fishing in 1900. This boat is actually a replica that was built in 1987 and is used during the warmer months to carry sight-seeing passengers on the historic Mystic River.

The next ship on display is an auxiliary schooner, or a sailing yacht, called Brilliant. Many years ago, this ship crossed the Atlantic Ocean in just 15 days on its maiden voyage, which was a record for a sailing yacht of that size. This ship is currently used at Mystic Seaport as an offshore classroom.

The next ship on display is a Friendship Sloop called Estella A.

The next ship on display is a dragger called Florence. This ship was originally used to trawl for fish at the bottom of the Long Island Sound by dragging a conical net. It is also the only working dragger located in a museum collection, and it is now used to carry students to collect marine biology specimens from Fishers Island Sound. 

The next ship on display is a lighthouse tender called Gerda III. While this ship is a lighthouse tender, it was also used as a common work boat. 

The next ship on display is a training ship called Joseph Conrad. This ship was used to train sailors in Denmark and is still used as a training ship for the Mystic Mariner Program and the museum’s educational programs.

The next ship on display is a harbor tugboat called Kingston II. This tugboat is one of the earliest all-welded vessels, having been constructed from scrap steel by apprentice welders training to work on submarines.

The next ship on display is an oyster or shoal-draft sloop called Nellie, which was used for oyster dredging in Long Island Sound. 

The next ship on display is a carry-away sloop called Regina M. This ship was used to collect herring from fish weirs and transport them to canneries on shore.

The next ship on display is a dragger called Roann. This ship was used to fish for flounder, cod, and haddock.

The last ship on display is a fishing vessel called Star, which was built in Connecticut for swordfish fishing and tuna fishing.

There are also a number of exhibits going on at the museum right now, which I will go over. 

The first exhibit that is going on right now is called Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea. This exhibit is centered around maritime histories in Indigenous, African, and African-descended worldviews and experiences. 

The next exhibit is called Voyage to the Deep – Underwater Adventures. This exhibit is based on the novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” features a giant Nautilus submarine that visitors can climb aboard and see how it works, and it features fun activities for kids like slides, climbing structures, and tabletop games.

The next exhibit is called Spineless: A Glass Menagerie of Blaschka Marine Invertebrates. This exhibit features glass figurines of sea creatures like sponges, jellyfish, crustaceans, mollusks, and many others.

The next exhibit is called The Sea Connects Us. It consists of stories of maritime history that are displayed on panels throughout the museum grounds.

The next exhibit is called Temperance and Trade. This is where guests can attend a Union Temperance meeting that happened on July 10, 1872, which is based on an actual meeting that occurred on the same day in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and guests will also learn about the science and history of alcoholic beverages.

The next exhibit is the Benjamin F. Packard Cabin, which is a portion of the ship’s aft cabin that is on display and consists of the captain’s stateroom and the officers’ mess cabin. 

The next exhibit is a Whaleboat Exhibit that features a fully equipped whaleboat on display.

The next exhibit is called Sentinels of the Sea, which is a multimedia exhibition recounting the history and diversity of lighthouses from around the country.

The next exhibit is the Thames Keel Shipbuilding Exhibit. This exhibit features a 92-foot keel assembly from the whaleship Thames.

The next exhibit is called Small Boats, which has a variety of catboats on display.

The next exhibit is one that I remember seeing the last time I went there, a Mystic River Scale Model that depicts what Mystic River looked like in the mid-1800s.

The next exhibit is called Sea as Muse, and it explores the ways that the sea provided inspiration for decorative arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The last exhibit is called Figureheads and Shipcarvings, which focuses on the unique designs that were on the bows of ships in the 19th century.

The third major highlight is the Historic Seaport Village, which is a recreation of a 19th century New England seaport village. I will now go over all the major buildings that are a part of this village. 

The first building is a shed that is home to Block Island Fire Engine #1. This is a fire engine that was built in the 1850s, was pulled by hand, had a pump-break mechanism that could develop enough pressure to throw a stream of water 100 feet.

The next building there is the Boardman School. This school still has a number of old desks, a wood stove, and a blackboard with it.

The next building there is the Brustolon House. Back in 1863, this house was built as the George Greenman & Co. store, which sold produce and other goods to shipyard and mill employees and nearby families.

The next building there is the Buckingham-Hall House. This house used to be located in Saybrook, Connecticut, and was threatened with demolition with the construction of a new highway bridge across the Connecticut River in 1951, and Mystic Seaport agreed to preserve it. The kitchen ell with its huge hearth is still the site for open-hearth cooking demonstrations, and the kitchen garden in the back is the source for much of the fresh produce. Quilting and weaving are also practiced in the house, and 19th-century dressmaking classes are also hosted here.

The next building there is the Burrows House, which used to be situated on the opposite side of the Mystic River, but when it was going to be demolished to make way for a bank in 1953, it was saved by Mystic Seaport.

The next building there is the Charles Mallory Sail Loft, which was used to build sails for a variety of ships, and the house is still open today for cooking demonstrations, quilting, weaving, and dressmaking classes.

The next building there is Chubb’s Wharf, which was modeled after the granite wharves in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with dimensions of 150 feet by 100 feet, and in the center of the wharf is a representation of an oil pen.

The next building there is the Clark Greenman House, which is built in the Greek Revival style and serves as the museum’s administration building.

The next building there is the Cooperage, which is a shop where barrels were manufactured. The building itself currently includes typical features of a cooperage, such as a hearth large enough to work in while firing casks, a crane with a block and tackle and chine hooks, and a loft for storage.

The next building there is Dave’s Clam Shack, which is currently a workshop for the museum’s demonstration squad, which demonstrates maritime skills around the grounds in the warmer months.

The next building there is the Drug Store and the Doctor’s Office.

The next building there is a church called the Fishtown Chapel.

The next building there is the GEO H Stone General Store, which is filled with reminders of community life and foodways of the mid-19th century.

The next building there is the George Greenman House, which is built in the Greek revival style, has a cast-iron fence, porches, and ornate decorations, and it has been designed to look the way it did in 1900.

The next building there is George W. Smith, Mast Hoop Manufacturer, which made wooden mast hoops of a variety of sizes that held the sail to the mast, as well as other products made from wood like wagons, wheels, clothespins, washboards, stable forks, and belaying pins.

The next building there is the James Driggs Ship Smith Shop. This building is the only manufactory of ironwork for the whaling industry known to have survived from the 19th century.

The next building there is the Labaree House, which was built for managers of the Rossie Velvet Company, and the museum purchased it and turned it into office space. 

The next building there is the Langworthy House, which served as a boardinghouse for ship carpenters and other laborers and was run by ship joiner David Langworthy.

The next building there is the Lewis House, which has been used as a dormitory for the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program as well as office space.

The next building there is the Lobster Shack, which housed gear necessary for lobster fishing in the 19th century, and currently features facilities for building traps, a lobster car, and a lobsterman’s rowing skiff.

The next building there is an old church called the Meeting House.

The next building there is Middle Wharf, which is a wooden pier that is also a good place where you can observe the birds of the Mystic River.

The next building there is the old Mystic Bank.

The next building there is the old Mystic Press Printing Office.

The next building there is the Nautical Instruments Shop, which is where ships’ officers could purchase or make adjustments to their precise and somewhat delicate navigational tools. Visitors to this building will find a variety of tall case clocks, compasses, barometers, quadrants, sextants, telescopes, and charts from the 19th century. There will also be an interpreter on duty to show how all these tools work together in navigation.

The next building there is the New Shoreham Life-Saving Station.

The next building there is the Newbert & Wallace Shipyard Privy, which is a shed that served as the restroom for shipwrights.

The next building there is the Plymouth Cordage Company Ropewalk. This is where rope was made, which was important in the operation of a sailing vessel. Although the ropewalk is set as if to function, the machinery is not powered, but the spinning process is portrayed on the second floor of the building, while ropemaking is demonstrated on a smaller scale by museum staff.

The next building there is the Rigging Loft, which houses the rigger, which had the important job of installing the lines and ropes on a vessel that supported the masts or raised the sails.

The next building there is the Robie Ames Salmon Shack, which housed the mooring lines, nets, floats, and buoys that Isaac Ames would use during his salmon fishing. 

The next building there is called Samuel Thompson’s Nephew & Co., which is the office of a shipping merchant that is located on the second floor of the Mystic Bank.

The next building there is the Seamen’s Friend Society Reading Room. The main purpose of the society was to uplift sailors and give them an alternative to the bars, boardinghouses, and brothels they frequented while in port. This building will typically have one of the museum’s role-players there to talk about what it was like to live in an 1870s maritime community. 

The next building there is the Ship Carver, which as its name suggests, made wooden carvings on a ship, such as nameboards, trailboards, figureheads, and sternboards, as well as shop signs, tobacconists’ figures, and decorations meant for the home.

The next building there is the Ship Chandlery, which served as a retail and wholesale source of supplies for both individual seamen and vessels and for needs such as whaling, shipping, fishing, or ship building. The chandlery here is used to display a large number of objects from the museum’s collection that would be found in a typical chandlery, like anchor balls, lights, bomb lance guns, hoops, and caulking irons.

The next building there is the Thomas Greenman House, which represents the affluence and importance of the family, who came to Mystic and made their fortunes as shipbuilders, manufacturers, and men of commerce. 

The next building there is the Thomas Oyster House, which was initially used as a culling shop where oysters were sorted by size and shipped in their shells by the barrel to markets around the country, until it became a shucking house several years later. 

The last building there is US Life-Saving Service – Halfway House, which was the place where men on the beach patrol exchanged brass tags with a patrolman from the adjoining station to indicate that their patrols had been completed.

Overall, there are many cool things to see and do here, so go ahead and go check out a piece of history in Connecticut!