Marblehead Launches Maritime Museum at Abbot Hall

The Historical Commission unveiled the newest place for learning about Marblehead and the nation's storied maritime history.

That place is the newly renovated Dr. Raymond Cole Maritime Museum in .

Seventy-five people attended the rededication on Wednesday then explored the room's maps, paintings, written accounts and artifacts.

The items were fixed neatly on walls, hung from the ceiling and inside cabinets and tucked in drawers.

Chris Johnston, chairman of the commission, slid open a drawer below a painting of the USS Marblehead, a naval vessel that saw action in the Spanish-American War in 1898.

One of the ship's major missions was to disrupt the enemy's communications. A USS Marblehead crew cut the communications cable used by the Spanish off Havana, Cuba.

In the museum's drawer was a cap worn by a crew member and a piece of the cut cable.

The room includes video of the USS Constitution's return visit to Marblehead in 1997.

It includes models of ships, historic signs and historic photographs blown up and placed on the walls.

The commission chairman likened the room to a naval history book.

The stories the museum tells include the following

• Marblehead as birthplace of the US Navy
• Glover's Regiment — the first true Marine regiment
• Marblehead's historic ties to the USS Constitution
• The three ships named for the town
• Marblehead as the brithplace of the Marine Corps' aviation forces
• Aviation in Marblehead

Fred Brink of Marblehead put together the video on the USS Constitution's visit to Marblehead, a watershed event that created great excitement in 1997.

"This event just turned the town inside out," he said.

Peter Stacey, an associate member of the Historical Commission, said he thinks the museum fulfills what its benefactor, Dr. Raymond Cole, envisioned.

"It's important because Marblehead history is becoming available to the public," he said.

Dr. Cole, a dentist in the US Navy and in Marblehead, died in 2010, said Chris Johnston.

He established the museum to celebrate Marblehead’s unique Naval history, and donated its contents to the town along with a sizeable endowment to maintain and upgrade the museum.

The Museum is also the home to more of well-known painter and illustrator Samuel H. Bryant’s maritime watercolors than any other museum, the commission chairman said.

For further information, contact the Historical Commission at historic@marblehead.org, or by phone at 781-639-3425.

Visit the museum Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm, from April to December.