Museums and Collections in Massachusetts

Discover 30 unusual museums and collections in Massachusetts.

Grafton, Massachusetts

Willard House & Clock Museum

The world's most comprehensive collection of Willard timepieces is a celebration of early American clockmaking.

Boston, Massachusetts

The BYTE Shop

This electronics repair store celebrates the history of computers.

Taxidermied butterflies.

Amherst, Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts Entomology Collection

This miniature museum is home to a vast array of insects.

An early pair of vibrating panties

Provincetown, Massachusetts

Toys of Eros

This stimulating sex toy museum is sure to arouse the interest of its visitors.

Plymouth, Massachusetts

Plimoth Patuxet

Since 1947, this living history museum has been providing an immersive look at life in Plymouth Colony.

New Bedford Fire Museum

New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford Fire Museum

This museum dedicated to local history is housed in the state's oldest surviving fire station.

Springfield Armory.

Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield Armory

The largest collection of historic military firearms in the United States.

Shipbuilding room.

Scituate, Massachusetts

Maritime and Irish Mossing Museum

A quaint museum nestled in a former hub of Irish moss harvesting.

Paul Revere Lantern, on view at the Concord Museum.

Concord, Massachusetts

Paul Revere Lantern

One of two lighted lanterns hung in the church belfry on the eve of the Revolutionary War to warn that the British were on their way.

The exhibit.

North Adams, Massachusetts

Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit

More than 200 unconventional musical instruments that anyone can play.

Exterior of the building.

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Newburyport Maritime Museum

A historic custom house with ties to George Washington is now a shrine to local nautical history.

Often they are images from the Gospels or of the Virgin Mary.

Clinton, Massachusetts

Museum of Russian Icons

This old mill and former police station now present a world-class collection of Orthodox iconography.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Forbes Pigment Collection

The thousands of shades on display — some toxic, others impossibly rare — are a library of more than just color.

Fetal whale skeleton

New Bedford, Massachusetts

The Oozing Whale Skeleton of New Bedford

For 20 years, this whale skeleton has been slowly dripping oil on the floor of the museum where it hangs.

Fisher Museum Forestry Dioramas

Petersham, Massachusetts

Fisher Museum Forestry Dioramas

This series of landscape dioramas tell the story of New England forestry in exacting miniature detail.

Joseph Allen Skinner Museum

South Hadley, Massachusetts

Joseph Allen Skinner Museum

One philanthropist's extensive collection of knick-knacks and curiosities is now a public museum of oddity.