Collections

Welcome to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s collections! The Museum’s collections document the maritime history and maritime archaeology of the Champlain Valley. Our collections contain thousands of items in a variety of formats, from paper manuscripts, photographs, and postcards, to archaeologically recovered materials from the lake’s many research projects and shipwreck sites.

We are your resource for the stories of the individuals and communities of the Champlain Valley. The Museum is actively working to increase accessibility of our collections to the public. On this page, you can find summaries of our largest and most frequently studied collections. These collections represent the broad arc of the region’s history, from the American War of Independence to Lake Champlain’s canal era and age of steam. Please browse, ask us questions, and keep checking back to see our newest additions as we continue to make more collections digitally accessible!

We always want to better represent the people and communities that have called the Champlain Valley home. We especially welcome additions that document the area’s BIPOC communities, and are working closely with Abenaki and other indigenous leaders and community members to appropriately represent all people and cultures with our audiences.

Are you interested in donating something to the Museum’s collections? Please email Patricia Reid, Collections Manager, at PatriciaR@lcmm.org. If you are interested in conducting research in the Museum’s collections, please email our Research and Archaeology team at research@lcmm.org. We would be happy to discuss how we can best support your research projects.

Explore the Collections:

Click here to review the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum Collection Policy View