on Tuesdays and Thursday from 10 to 2 and by appointment.
is featured every Tuesday at 4pm during July and August.
The Woods Hole Historical Collection continues as the Archive portion of the Museum, as well as in the publishing of books and the journal Spritsail.
Built around 1803, it was bought by Captain William H. Bradley at auction in 1821 for $339; it was home to the Bradley family for many years. In 1902 it was bought by the Fay family and moved to its present location a few hundred feet west along Woods Hole Road. Later, it was donated to the Woods Hole Library and rented as a doctor's office. It was restored and made into a museum in 1976.
Bradley House contains two galleries with exhibits that generally change each year. The third gallery contains a permanent scale model of Woods Hole, circa 1895. The Archives (Woods Hole Historical Collection) are also in Bradley House.
To see what is scheduled for galleries 1 and 2, please check the Schedule.
The Swift Barn: Small Boat Museum
The Swift Barn was built in 1877
by E. E. Swift for $80.71, labor and materials. It now houses the Small
Boat Museum. Displays include an 1890s Woods Hole Spritsail boat (SPY); a Herreshoff
12 1/2, a Cape Cod Knockabout, a Mirror dinghy, a 1922 Old Town canoe,
a Woods Hole Chamberlain dory and many boat models and maritime artifacts.
Other small boats on the campus include two more Cape Cod Knockabouts,
two Beetle cat boats under restoration and our latest gift: a 1905
Spritsail boat.
Be sure to go around the far end of the Swift Barn to see the children's inter-active exhibit. There kids can climb aboard the Cape Cod Knockabout Penguin and sail the Sound in their imaginations. People can try their hand at tying knots: the bowline and the clove hitch, and feel the Power of Pulleys
Boat Restoration Barns
Located behind the Small Boat Museum are the barns that house the boat restoration program. Every Saturday morning students of all ages convene to learn the art and skills of working on wooden boats. A complete restoration of a Beetle cat, literally from stem to stern, has been completed. An Old Town Canoe has also been restored. Drop back and take a look. This has been an all volunteer project; the teachers and students come simply because of their devotion to wooden boats. Boat restoration in progress.
The Yale Workshop
This shop, circa 1892, recreates the domain of a 19th century Renaissance man who summered in Quissett. The workshop had been adjacent to his Quissett house "The Barnacle", now demolished. Leroy Milton Yale, Jr. was a pediatrician by profession. He was an accomplished fly fisherman who made his own rods and tied his own flies. He wrote articles for Scribners Magazine on sporting subjects. He was a photographer and a well-known artist who founded the New York Etching Society. He was an expert woodworker. The shop contains a display of artifacts, many original, as well as some acquired as representative of the era, including books, maps, nineteenth century tools, equipment, etchings and artifacts appropriate to Dr. Yale's interests.
Walsh Rambler Rose Garden
This small formal garden is dedicated to the memory of Michael Walsh, a gardener from North Wales, who came to work in 1877 on the Joseph Story Fay estate in Woods Hole. It was here that Walsh hybridized many world famous Rambler roses. The garden contains several varieties of Walsh's Ramblers trained along fences.
