Discover how Cape Cod fishermen travelled close to shore and far from land before the days of electronic devices. The exhibit features reproductions and an original of large, century-old maritime charts from the archives of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
T.E. Howe’s Market on Eel Pond Businesses of Old Woods Hole Explore the history of Woods Hole through its businesses. Learn about carpenters and entrepreneurs, about tea ...
A list of exhibits at our Museum over the years. The first exhibit of the Woods Hole Historical Museum was held in 1974 in Endeavor House on School Street. The following year, in 1975, an exhibit was held at Fisher House on Church Street.
This model of Woods Hole, as it appeared in August 1895, was made by 37 museum volunteers in 1982. The year 1895 was chosen because most present-day activities had begun about this time: ferries to the islands, the scientific institutions and summer visitors.
Electric home refrigerators didn't begin to replace home ice boxes until the 1920s and to keep things in those ice boxes cold, one needed ice. Here in the northeast, much of that ice was cut from ponds that froze over in the winter. The ice was cut and then stacked in ice houses to be used throughout the year. During summer of 2015 one of the exhibits at the Woods Hole Historical Museum told the story of the ice and the ice houses that were found around the shores of many of the ponds in Falmouth. Much of what was on display in that exhibit is now online and can be viewed by clicking here.
This online exhibit is devoted to Women of Woods Hole over age 75. Joan Pearlman and Sally Casper photographed approximately 115 women and the photographs are paired with short autobiographical sketches. Some of the women are summer residents and visitors, others are year-rounders. Some are scientists, others are artists. Some are associated with MBL, others with WHOI. Most have been parents and home-makers. All love Woods Hole.
Franklin Gifford (1854-1936), a long-time resident of Woods Hole, filled his retirement making paintings of local scenes that he remembered or reconstructed. Twenty or so of Gifford's paintings now hang on the walls of the Woods Hole Public Library. Some of the paintings depict battles or famous historical events, but many (like the paint of eeling shown here) show scenes of village life in Woods Hole in the 1800s and capture a sense of what that life was like.
Beginning in 1859, Woods Hole was home to the Pacific Guano works. On Penzance Point, where multimillion dollar homes now stand, ships from around the world brought guano and dead fish to a smelly factory that manufactured fertilizer. Then in 1889, the guano works suddenly shut down. Why was it there? What did it do? And why did it close so suddenly? You can learn more about the guano works here.
Hear Woods Hole: An Audio Tour of the Village. You can take an audio tour of Woods Hole. Visit the Bell Tower, meet Sam Cahoon, and learn about the Buckminster Fuller dome here.
During the summer of 2013, the Museum hosted an exhibit honoring the Marine Biological Laboratory for 125 years in Woods Hole.