Nantucket Historical Association Whaling Museum

No visit to Nantucket is complete without a stop at the world-renowned Whaling Museum, owned by the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA). Although the NHA preserves and interprets over twenty historic sites on the island, the Whaling Museum is truly its crown jewel.

The museum features a fully restored 1847 spermaceti candle factory that houses the original whale-oil beam press-a magnificent three-story wooden structure that is the only such artifact still in its original location anywhere in the world. It also features a 46-foot sperm whale skeleton, especially impressive because the sperm whale put Nantucket on the map as the most prosperous port in America during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Other galleries display major changing exhibitions, world-class scrimshaw, and numerous historic objects and paintings.

From July 1 through November 8 the museum will feature a special exhibition, Notable Nantucket Women through the Centuries.