Hours & Dates
Open July – August
Tuesday – Sunday 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
(978) 546-2958
Location
291 Main Street
Route 127
Rockport, MA
Free Admission
James Babson Museum
James Babson Museum
Roger W. Babson first opened the small stone structure called the James Babson Museum during the first Babson family reunion event in July 1931. Situated on the site of a land grant given to Isabel Babson in 1658 and used as a location for a cooperage by her son James, the current structure was originally part of a farm building complex inhabited by individuals and families beginning in 1770s with Col. Joseph Foster. With the opening in 1931, Roger created a one room museum and filled the small stone building with a collection of tools and artifacts from over 3 centuries of handicraft/trade activity. On display are tools for making of barrels and an incredible mix of wooden and metal objects as diverse as oxen yokes to butter churns.
Interested in learning more about Indigenous history of the site of the cooperage around the time of James Babson and succeeding generations? Explore research summaries describing Indigenous connection with this and three other Cape Ann sites at Indigenous History of Places with Babson Connections.
Tools and Artifacts at the Museum
Plan a visit to the Babson Museum to see a fascinating collection of close to 200 tools and artifacts that would have been used on Cape Ann over three centuries from the mid-1600s up to the early 1900s. You will see tools from the cooperage trade, the original purpose of the stone structure. James Babson (1622-1683) made barrels here that were transported to the nearby Good Harbor Harbor to be filled with fish and then shipped to England, the West Indies and other places around the world.
