Tuckerton Seaport Museum
120 West Main Street
Tuckerton, NJ 08087
(609) 296-8868
Open: Sunday-Wednesday 10:00am-4:00pm/Thursday-Friday Closed/Saturday 10:00am-4:00 pm
Admission: Based on tours arranged during the season. Please check the website.
My TripAdvisor:
The Tuckerton Museum and the Seaport at 120 West Main Street in Tuckerton, NJ
The entrance to the complex from Route 9
The entrance to the Tuckerton Seaport complex on a sunny Saturday morning
The complex was once a bustling fishing and shipping area that has now been preserved as a cultural site with tours, a series of restaurants and a museum.
The Mission of the Museum:
(from the Tuckerton Seaport Museum website)
Our mission at the Tuckerton Seaport is to preserve, present and interpret the rich maritime history, artistry, heritage and environment of the Jersey shore and the unique contributions of its baymen.
The dock area by the coffee shop
The artwork by the parking lot and coffee shop
I walked over to the main building which served as both the gift shop and museum. It was funny that the gift shop took both the first two front rooms of the museum. I had to look behind shirts to see the displays.
The docks and touring boats by the museum
The Seaport Tuckerton Museum at 120 West Main Street
The History of the Complex:
(from the Tuckerton Museum website)
Originally launched as the Barnegat Bay Decoy and Baymen’s Museum, the Tuckerton Seaport has evolved over the past twenty-two years into a community museum and community center occupying 40 acres located along historic Tuckerton Creek in Tuckerton, New Jersey. Tuckerton Seaport benefits from a prime location at the center of the Jersey shore, easily accessible via Exit 58 on the Garden State Parkway. Tuckerton Seaport works as a coastal cultural center to bring folklife traditions of the past and present to life through programs on land and water.
The museum was just opening up as I arrived and the staff was busy getting everything ready so I just walked around the museum. It is an interesting museum on New Jersey’s nautical past and the growth of the shipping and trading that went on in the turn of the last century. The museum also showed the bustling fishing industry that still exists today.
The Giant Chicken greets you at the door
The Giant Chicken was a road stop symbol of the White Way Farm Market and a tourist attraction
I thought it was rather cute and could see why people stopped
The view from the front porch of the museum was spectacular on this sunny day
The exhibit at the museum ‘Museum in the Making’, which is a through look at Tuckerton, its past and its contributions to the growth of New Jersey
The first room also served as a bustling gift shop with the main attraction this carving of the ‘Jersey Devil’
A display of Duck Decoys
A collection of woodcarvings of fisherman
The popular businesses that once lined Route 9 up and down the shore area
Displaying life down the shore in that era with quilting and sewing
The display of wood carvings and artwork on the first floor
The artworks made of driftwood by local artists
The driftwood art display on the first floor
The rooms both on the first and second floor were displayed by themes of Lenape Indian life at the shore, the Dutch and English traders, growth of shore farming, shipping and trade and fishing industries and the development of tourism in the area with steamships and the railroads.
The first room in the museum is a detailed look at the life of the Lenape and the froth of the fishing industry
The early life at the Jersey shore
The Native American display
The first part of the early development of Tuckerton started as the fishing and hunting grounds of the Native Americans until the settlement of the Dutch
The history of the Lenape
The arrival of the Europeans started the bustling shipping and trade industries that supplied the home country
With the growth of industry and farming many people started businesses to supply the population
Some started popular businesses that lasted over a century
E. Walter Parsons Jr. had a very successful fishing business that was in the family until 1984
With the rich soil in the area, local farmers worked the land providing fruits and vegetables for the growing population
Early farming equipment on display
The second floor galleries depicted the developing life at the shore with creating of modern life saving for the shipping and fishing industries and with coming of railroads, the bustling tourism industry with the change of leisure travel after the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution.
The second floor rail transportation display
The second floor display on shipwrecks off the Jersey coast
The development of modern Life Saving procedures
With storms at sea and affecting life in the area, as it still does today, there was a growth and development of modern Live-saving procedures and rescue methods.
The Life Saving exhibit
The use of the Lyle Gun in rescues
The series of pulleys and wenches are still used today in different forms. They had to create a safe way to rescue people not just from storms but accidents as well.
The Life Saving and Rescue display
Rescue display
The railroad made its way to the Jersey shore bringing tourists from both New York and Philadelphia and bustling North Jersey. This opened the area up to tourism as leisure travel grew at the end of the nineteenth century.
One example of a visiting tourist was the Cinderella Cramer display with long distance travel to the shore.
The first female passenger of the Tuckerton Railroad
Getting the rail ticket
Tourism developing at the Jersey shore
The Cinderella Cramer display representing that eras travels to the shore with Victorian standards and use of steamer trunks
Packing the steamer trunks for the long journey
Artifacts from the shore
Life at the shore still had its perils as it does today with storms affecting development and shifting shore lines
The lighthouse light display
The museum once served as a beacon for shipping and the top level served as a lookout. Today you can walk upstairs and enjoy the views.
Traveling up the tower stairs
On this beautiful sunny and clear morning that I visited, the views were spectacular.
The view of the port area of the complex
The view of the inlet and Lake Pohatcong across from Route 9
My video of the views from the top of the lookout
The Tuckerton Seaport Museum tour was a very thorough look at the community and its development over the last three hundred years. The exhibits showed the progress the community has made and where it is headed in the future as the shore communities keep changing.
With the economy, the rise of AI, climate change and overall population growth toward the shore, it will be interesting to see the changes of the future.
Leaving the museum complex at the end of the trip
Tuckerton has an interesting past as a shipping and fishing destination and now you can tour the buildings and see what life was like back then and there it is moving in to the future today.
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 