Mystic Seaport facts for kids

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Mystic Seaport Museum

View from the Mystic River Estuary
Established	1932
Location	Mystic, Connecticut
Type	History Museum
Collection size	sailing ships and boats
Public transit access	SEAT: 10

The Mystic Seaport Museum is also known as Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea. It is located in Mystic, Connecticut and is the biggest museum about the sea in the United States. It's famous for its amazing collection of old sailing ships and boats. The museum also has a special village that looks just like a 19th-century seaport. It has more than 60 old buildings, many of which were moved here and carefully fixed up. The whole area is about 19 acres (0.077 km2) big!

Discovering Mystic Seaport
Explore the Seaport Village
Our Most Famous Ships
More Amazing Ships
Gallery
See also

Discovering Mystic Seaport

The museum started in 1929. It became very famous in 1941 when it got the Charles W. Morgan. This ship is the only wooden whaling ship still around!

Mystic Seaport was one of the first "living history" museums in the U.S. This means it has buildings and people who show you how people lived and worked a long time ago. About 250,000 people visit the museum every year.

The museum also helps people learn more about sea history. It has a huge library and offers special summer programs for older students. They even have sailing and history classes for kids!

Explore the Seaport Village

A street in Mystic Seaport, with the masts of the Charles W. Morgan in the background.

The Preservation Shipyard is a really important part of the museum. Here, people use old tools and methods to fix and take care of the museum's historic ships. This includes the 1841 whaling ship Charles W. Morgan.

A copy of the slave ship La Amistad was built right here in the shipyard. It was finished in 2000. In 2007, the Amistad sailed a very long journey across the Atlantic Ocean. This trip helped remember the 200th anniversary of when the slave trade ended in Great Britain.

The 19th-century seafaring village shows you what life was like back then. You can see all kinds of shops and businesses that helped build and run sailing ships. These include:

a chandlery (where sailors bought supplies)
a sail loft (where sails were made)
a ropewalk (where ropes were made)
a cooperage (where barrels were made)
a shipping agent's office
a printing office
a bank

You can also visit The Spouter Tavern, which serves food like travelers would have eaten long ago. In each building, you can see how things were done and what was sold. For example, the nautical instrument shop shows off old sextants and clocks used for navigation. At the cooperage, you can watch how barrels were put together.

A small model of Mystic, Connecticut as it looked around 1870.
Kids learning to sail small boats.

There are other buildings with cool exhibits too. One has a huge model of the entire Mystic River area from around 1870. This model is 40 feet long and shows everything, even tiny details! Another building has a collection of carved ship figureheads (the decorations on the front of old ships). The Treworgy Planetarium is also at the museum. It teaches you how sailors used the stars to find their way on the ocean.

You can even take sailing lessons or go for rides on different historic small boats. These tours give you a great view of the old ships docked at the museum. Mystic Seaport also has a special music program that features sea shanties. These are old work songs that sailors used to sing while doing tasks on ships.

Our Most Famous Ships

Four ships at Mystic Seaport are so important that the United States government has named them National Historic Landmarks. This means they are very special and need to be protected.

Vessel	Type	Overall length	Built	Description
Emma C. Berry	well smack	39 ft	1866	The Emma C. Berry is the last American "well smack" left. These boats were designed to keep fish alive in a special water-filled area inside the boat. She was given to Mystic Seaport in 1969 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
L. A. Dunton	fishing schooner	123 ft	1921	The L. A. Dunton was one of the last large fishing boats that used only sails. She fished in New England and then for cod in Newfoundland until the 1950s. Mystic Seaport got her in 1963 and made her look like new again. She became a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
Charles W. Morgan	whaler	113 ft	1841	The Charles W. Morgan is a whaling ship that was used for 80 years! She is the only wooden whaling ship left from the 2,700 ships that used to hunt whales in the U.S. On her deck, you can see huge pots used to turn whale blubber into oil. She came to Mystic Seaport in 1941 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Sabino	island steamer	57 ft	1908	The Sabino is a small steamboat that runs on coal. She is one of only two "mosquito fleet" boats left in the U.S. She became a National Historic Landmark in 1992. Mystic Seaport got her in 1974 and has used her for rides ever since. This makes her America's oldest regularly working coal-powered steamboat!

More Amazing Ships

Here are some other cool vessels you can find at Mystic Seaport:

Vessel	Type	Overall length	Built	Description
Annie	sandbagger sloop	28 ft	1880	The Annie was a racing boat. She was given to Mystic Seaport in 1931 and was the very first boat in their collection! She was fully restored in 2004.
Australia	coastal schooner	71 ft	1862	The Australia was built to carry goods in shallow coastal waters. During the American Civil War, she was used to sneak past blockades until Union ships captured her. Mystic Seaport got her in 1951 to use for training. She is now an exhibit that shows how ships were built.
Breck Marshall	cat boat	20 ft	c. 1900	The Breck Marshall is a copy of a Cape Cod catboat from around 1900. These boats were used for fun and fishing. In warmer months, you can ride on the Breck Marshall for sightseeing tours on the historic Mystic River.
Brilliant	auxiliary schooner	61 ft	1932	The Brilliant was built as a fancy ocean racing yacht. She once crossed the Atlantic Ocean in just over 15 days, which was a record for a sailing yacht her size! During World War II, the U.S. Coast Guard used her to patrol for enemy submarines. She was given to Mystic Seaport in 1957 and is now used as a classroom for learning about sailing offshore.
Estella A.	Friendship Sloop	34 ft	1904	The Estella A. is a classic "friendship sloop" built in Maine. Mystic Seaport got her in 1957 and fixed her up between 1970 and 1972.
Florence	dragger	40 ft	1926	The Florence is a "dragger" boat built in 1926. She was used to catch fish from the bottom of Long Island Sound by dragging a net. Mystic Seaport got her in 1982 and made her look like she did originally. She is the only working dragger in a museum collection! Now, she takes students out to collect sea creatures from Fishers Island Sound.
Gerda III	lighthouse tender	40 ft	1926	The Gerda III was built in Denmark in 1928. In 1943, she was used to secretly help about 300 Jewish people escape from Nazi-occupied Denmark to Sweden. The Danish Parliament gave her to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Mystic Seaport helps take care of the boat and shows her as part of their collection.
Joseph Conrad	training ship	111 ft	1882	The Joseph Conrad is named after the famous writer Joseph Conrad. She is a large sailing ship with an iron hull that was used to train sailors in Denmark. She sailed around the world in 1934! Mystic Seaport got her in 1947. Even though she doesn't sail the open sea anymore, she is still used to train young people in the museum's educational programs.
Kingston II	harbor tugboat	44 ft	1937	The Kingston II was a tugboat that worked for the U.S. Navy for 42 years. She helped move submarines! This tugboat is special because she was one of the first boats built entirely by welding steel together. She came to Mystic Seaport in 1980.
Nellie	oyster or shoal-draft sloop	36 ft	1891	The Nellie was built in New York and was used to collect oysters in Long Island Sound. Mystic Seaport got her in 1964.
Regina M.	carry-away sloop	45 ft	c. 1900	The Regina M. was built around 1900. She was used to collect herring fish from traps and take them to factories on shore. Mystic Seaport got her in 1940, and she was restored in 1992 to look like she did in 1909.
Roann	dragger	60 ft	1947	The Roann is a "dragger" boat built in Maine in 1947. She was used to fish for flounder, cod, and haddock. Mystic Seaport got her in the 1970s, and she was completely restored in 2009.
Star	Fishing vessel	34 ft	1950	The Star was built in Connecticut in 1950 for catching swordfish and tuna. Mystic Seaport got her in 1976, and she has been greatly restored.