Essex National Heritage Area
Custom House, Maritime Museum

Newburyport, Massachusetts

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The Newburyport Custom House Maritime Museum was designed by architect Robert Mills, who also designed such historical buildings as the Washington Monument. Built in 1835, this building was originally used as a Custom house in which the federal government collected taxes on imported goods brought home to Newburyport by ship captains from far away ports.

The Museum maintains original artifacts from the prosperous trade era, maritime art, models of Newburyport-built vessels, trades routs and journals, and old maps showing the city's birth. Exhibitions focus on Newburyport's role on privateering, and fame - and fortune - it brought to local captains such as Moses Brown. Tours for students, programs for families and kids, and lectures fro the maritime enthusiast, all feature Newburyport's connection to the sea and rich maritime heritage.

The Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport is officially designated an Essex National Heritage Area Visitor Center. As such, in addition to giving information about Newburyport's history, the Custom House Maritime Museum also provides information on resources in the towns of Amesbury, Salisbury, and Newbury, as well as general information about the Essex National Heritage Area.
The Newburyport Maritime Society (NMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting the maritime heritage of the lower Merrimack Valley. The NMS owns and operates the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport and Lowell’s Boat Shop Museum in Amesbury, showcasing over four centuries of maritime history in the region.

Nearby Area Sites

  • Amesbury and Salisbury Mills Village Historic DistrictIndustrial Trail
    Significant for its associations with the 19th century textile industry and it embodies the distinctive character of a mid-19th century industrial community
  • Dories at Lowell's Boat Shop Lowell's Boat Shop
    The country's oldest boat building shop and one of the nation's first mass production builders.
  • Rocky Hill Meetinghouse
    To this day is the least altered of any 18th Century country-meeting house in Massachusetts
  • Whittier Home
    The home of John Greenleaf Whittier, one of America's greatest poets, contains furnishings that remain nearly the same as when the Whittier family lived there from 1836-1892.
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