General Information
How to Get There
Overview
Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the crafts and fabric of an entire 19th-century seafaring village. It consists of more than 60 historic buildings, most of them rare commercial structures moved to the 19-acre site and meticulously restored.
The museum was established in 1929 as the "Marine Historical Association". Its fame came with the acquisition of the Charles W. Morgan in 1941, the only surviving wooden sailing whaler. The Seaport was one of the first living history museums in the United States, with a collection of buildings and craftsmen to show how people lived; it now receives about 250,000 visitors each year.
Charles W. Morgan is a whaling ship which was active for 80 years. She is the only surviving wooden whaler from 2,700 ships that operated in the United States whaling fleet. On her deck are huge try pots used to render blubber into whale oil. She came to Mystic Seaport in 1941 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
The Preservation Shipyard is an important part of the museum, where traditional tools and techniques are used to preserve the Museum's collection of historic vessels.
The 19th-century seafaring village contains nearly all the types of general and specialized trades associated with building and operating a sailing fleet. They include a chandlery, sail loft, ropewalk, cooperage, shipping agent's office, printing office, bank, and others. Also included is The Spouter Tavern, open seasonally and serving "travelers' fare". Each building is used both to show the original activity and to display examples of what was sold or constructed; the nautical instrument shop, for example, displays sextants, nautical timepieces, and so forth, while demonstrations at the cooperage show how casks are assembled.
Additional buildings house more exhibits. One is a 1⁄128 scale model of the entire Mystic River area as it appeared around 1870, complete down to the outhouse behind every residence; the model is 40 feet long. Another contains a collection of carved ship figureheads. Also among the museum's buildings is a planetarium which demonstrates how seamen used stars for navigation.
Sailing instruction is also offered, as well as tourist rides in various historical small craft. Such tours give a good overview of historic ships at their moorings. Mystic Seaport's music program is unusual, as it prominently features sea shanties in their original contexts as work songs.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mystic Seaport", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
