The only properties owned by the NPS are the Visitor Center and the Corson Maritime Learning Center. The park is a historic district administered under a partnership between the NPS, the City of New Bedford and private building owners to preserve the historic landscapes, structures, and collections and promote research and educational programming associated with the history of whaling. The enabling legislation also established a formal affiliation with the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, to commemorate the more than 2,000 whaling voyages from New Bedford to the Western Arctic. The city promotes visitation to the park through advertising that calls it "New England's real seaport", as opposed to Connecticut's Mystic Seaport Museum which is a collection of historic buildings and vessels moved from various other locations throughout the region.
Although the Whaleman Memorial is not within the park's boundaries, it is located only two blocks beyond its western boundary at the corner of William and Pleasant Streets in front of the New Bedford Public Library.
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American people. English colonists bought the land on which New Bedford would later be built from the Wampanoag in 1652, and the original colonial settlement that would later become the city was founded by English Quakers in the late 17th century. The town of New Bedford itself was officially incorporated in 1787.
Charles W. Morgan is an American whaling ship built in 1841 that was active during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ships of this type were used to harvest the blubber of whales for whale oil which was commonly used in lamps. Charles W. Morgan has served as a museum ship since the 1940s and is now an exhibit at the Mystic Seaport museum in Mystic, Connecticut. She is the world's oldest surviving (non-wrecked) merchant vessel, the only surviving wooden whaling ship from the 19th century American merchant fleet, and second to the USS Constitution, the oldest seaworthy vessel in the world. The Morgan was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park is located in San Francisco, California, United States. The park includes a fleet of historic vessels, a visitor center, a maritime museum, and a library/research facility. Formerly referred to as the San Francisco Maritime Museum, the collections were acquired by the National Park Service in 1978. The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park was authorized in 1988; the maritime museum is among the park's many cultural resources. The park also incorporates the Aquatic Park Historic District, bounded by Van Ness Avenue, Polk Street, and Hyde Street.
Independence National Historical Park is a federally protected historic district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation's founding history. Administered by the National Park Service, the 55-acre (22 ha) park comprises many of Philadelphia's most-visited historic sites within the Old City and Society Hill neighborhoods. The park has been nicknamed "America's most historic square mile" because of its abundance of historic landmarks.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the "Old Dartmouth" region in the South Coast of Massachusetts. The museum is governed by the Old Dartmouth Historical Society (ODHS), which was established in 1903 "to create and foster an interest in the history of Old Dartmouth." Since then, the museum has expanded its scope to include programming that addresses global issues "including the consequences of natural resource exhaustion, the diversification of industry, and tolerance in a multicultural society." Its collections include over 750,000 items, including 3,000 pieces of scrimshaw and 2,500 logbooks from whaling ships, both of which are the largest collections in the world, as well as five complete whale skeletons. The museum's complex consists of several contiguous buildings housing 20 exhibit galleries and occupying an entire city block within the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, although operated independently.
Effie M. Morrissey is a schooner skippered by Robert Bartlett that made many scientific expeditions to the Arctic, sponsored by American museums, the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society. She also helped survey the Arctic for the United States Government during World War II. She is currently designated by the United States Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark as part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. She is the State Ship of Massachusetts.
The South Coast of Massachusetts is the region of southeastern Massachusetts consisting of the southern Bristol and Plymouth counties, bordering Buzzards Bay, and includes the cities of Fall River, New Bedford, the southeastern tip of East Taunton and nearby towns. The term is recent, dating to the 1990s, and sometimes confused with the South Shore.
Lettie G. Howard, formerly Mystic C and Caviare, is a wooden Fredonia schooner built in 1893 in Essex, Massachusetts, USA. This type of craft was commonly used by American offshore fishermen, and is believed to be the last surviving example of its type. She was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. She is now based at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.
The William Rotch Jr. House, now the Rotch–Jones–Duff House and Garden Museum, is a National Historic Landmark at 396 County Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the United States. The three families whose names are attached to it were all closely tied to the city's nineteenth-century dominance of the whaling industry. Because of this, the house is part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park.
The William J. Rotch Gothic Cottage is a historic cottage on 19 Irving Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The Gothic Revival cottage was built in 1845 to a design by noted New York City architect Alexander Jackson Davis. It was built for William J. Rotch, a member of one of New Bedford's leading whaling families. It is for these two associations that it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. It is one a very few surviving Gothic cottage designs by Davis, exhibiting features not found in the others that do. The house was included in The Architecture of Country Houses, published in 1850, bringing it early fame and making it an iconic example of the style.
The New Bedford Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, west of the community's waterfront. During the 19th century, when the city was the center of the American whaling industry, this was its downtown. After its decline in the early and mid-20th century, through the efforts of local activist groups the district has since been preserved and restored to appear much as it was during that period.
The Old Third District Courthouse in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, is located at the corner of Second and William streets. It was built in 1853 by Russell Warren in the Greek Revival architectural style, as the home of the New Bedford Institute for Savings, a local bank. After the bank moved, the Bristol County courts came in. They, too, eventually outgrew it and moved elsewhere in the city. Since the creation of New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park in 1996, it has been used by the National Park Service (NPS) as the park's visitor center.
The Central New Bedford Historic District is one of nine historic districts in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. The district encompasses the city's central business district, built up during the time in the late 19th century when textiles had replaced whaling as the city's main industry. It is a 29-acre (12 ha) rectangular area bounded by Acushnet Avenue and the older New Bedford Historic District on the east, School Street to the south, Middle Street on the north and 6th Street in the west. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Merrill's Wharf Historic District is a historic district encompassing a portion of the waterfront area of New Bedford, Massachusetts. It encompasses two wharves just to the south of State Pier: the Steamboat Pier and the adjacent Coal Packet Pier. Also included is the stone counting house built by Edward Merrill, the last surviving stone waterfront structure from New Bedford's heyday as a whaling center.
The Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE, also known as WHALE, is a non-profit historic preservation organization located in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Its mission is: "to promote the value and reuse of greater New Bedford's historic structures through preservation, education and advocacy". The organization often promotes its cause with the words of one of its founders, Sarah Delano. Delano said, "if you bulldoze your heritage, you become just anywhere".
The following is a timeline of the history of New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States.
Amelia Piper (1796–1856) was a former slave and abolitionist, who organized anti-slavery fairs, was a manager of the New Bedford Female Union Society, and was a fundraiser for the abolition of slavery. She and her husband were conductors on the Underground Railroad. She worked within the African-American community and the greater New Bedford, Massachusetts community to coordinate the efforts of others to provide lives of freedom to those who had been enslaved.
Charles Waln Morgan was a whaling industry executive, banker and businessman. At his peak in the whaling industry, he owned fourteen whaling ships, one of which was named after him, the Charles W. Morgan. It became a National Historic Landmark. He sold the sperm oil that came from his ships, and also used it in his candle-making factory.
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Visitor Center
Benjamin Rodman Mansion
Dover Street
Rotch-Jones House
