About
Set in the 1739 residence of Capt. Benjamin James on the Driftway, Scituate's Maritime & Irish Mossing Museum stands out on the South Shore of Massachusetts as one of those true "gems" of local history.
Currently, the museum holds six growing and changing exhibits, each with a descriptive video:
The Orientation Room holds the secrets to what is to be told in the rest of the museum's exhibits, with hints of the story of the Portland Gale, Scituate's many shipwrecks, Thomas W. Lawson's seven-masted schooner, and more. Collaboration with local divers Tom Mulloy and Bill Carter enables the Society to display numerous artifacts from the 1853 wreck of the Forest Queen off Peggotty Beach, including Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce bottles and, on occasion, a solid ingot of silver identified as having passed through specific trading houses in China by its stamped markings. We are currently collaborating with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Stellwagen Banks Sanctuary on an exhibit of submerged cultural resources (shipwrecks).
The Shipwreck Room focuses on the Portland Gale and its effect on Scituate and the surrounding area. The stories of the steamer Portland, the pilot boat Columbia, and the opening of the new mouth of the North River dramatically demonstrate the unbelievable power of the storm. The Fairfax-Pinthis collision of 1930 and the famous stranding of the Etrusco on Cedar Point in 1956 round out the story of the room. A fourth order Fresnel lighthouse lens and a cannon found at the base of Minot's Light, possibly from the British ship HMS Rose can also be seen.
