Maine Maritime Museum

[Harold O.]

While in New England last week, we went to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine. Next to the famed Bath Iron Works, which is still actively building metal ships.

What we were looking for was a destination where we could learn some regional history. We got a lot more than that with this museum. I'll spare you too many details, but the museum is on the site where many wooden ships were built over a long period of time. Many of the original buildings are still there (ok - burned down, rebuilt, burned again, rebuilt, etc). But you can walk between the various shops and see where/how those men built sea going vessels in the wayback days. Helps that the weather was sparkling.

Turns out they have an active wood shop that has small wooden boat building classes.

Images are from the old wood shop. Most were powered by an electric motor on the lower floor and belted to the tools. Workers had to provide their own hand tools, so it's amazing they were able to gather up as many planes, saws, chisels, etc as they did.