Our Exhibits
Defending the Coast:
Warfare in Portland Harbor
Defending the Coast: Warfare in Casco Bay is a semi-permanent exhibit that opened in May 2024. This exhibit explores Peaks Island's role in Casco Bay's harbor defense system that lasted for centuries. Until World War II, defending the coast was the priority. Deep-water ports, like Portland, facilitated trade, and healthy trade equaled a healthy economy. Islands and harbors were strategic locations when it came to defending the coastal cities along the eastern seaboard. Come and learn about the fortifications that dot Portland Harbor to this day.
Relics of the Defeated: Confederate Artifacts at the Fifth Maine Museum
This exhibit displays and interprets objects collected by the Fifth Maine veterans during and after the war. These objects helped to validate their service to a cause greater than themselves, and in some small way justify the deaths and injuries of their fellow comrades. The veterans built the Fifth Maine Memorial Hall in part to hold these relics and share them with others, in hope that the sacrifices made during the War – and the defeat of the Confederacy - would never be forgotten.
Terrible Swift Sword:
Civil War Weapons and Ordnance
The Civil War is often regarded as the first “modern war”. In many respects the war was a watershed between old and new, bridging Napoleonic-era tactics and weaponry with a modern technological approach to warfare.
While not comprehensive, this exhibit presents a representative selection of the variety of weapons used by both North and South during the Civil War.
Eric Champigny, Guest Curator
The Coney Island of Maine
Victorian beliefs about “healthy salt air” and newfound wealth combined to create a leisure class that flocked to the Maine seaside. Peaks Islanders replaced a hardscrabble life of fishing and farming with a tourism-based economy. They couldn’t build fast enough. Dubbed the “Coney Island of Maine,” Peaks Island at the turn of the twentieth-century boasted big hotels, grand theaters, posh restaurants, and a boardwalk full of amusements.
Peaks Island People
This exhibit features Peaks Island artifacts including the 1875 Sewing Circle quilt, selections from the newly acquired Leavitt family collection, and two pieces of furniture used by the Trefethen family. It also displays Peaks Island scrapbooks and photographs, largely from the mid-to-late 20th century.
Memorial Hall
The Fifth Maine Regiment Memorial Hall was built in 1888 by the veterans of the Fifth Maine Volunteer Regiment as a memorial and reunion hall. The veterans created a quiet, almost sacred space where they gathered, reminisced, and drew comfort from each other. As time passed, the reunions grew smaller and smaller (the last one was in 1940), and the building fell into disrepair.
In 1956, The Fifth Maine Regiment building was given to the Peaks Island community by the descendants of the veterans who built it. Since then, restoration work has brought the building back to its former glory. It is an architectural gem that is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Abandon Ship!
Mishaps and Maydays on Casco Bay
This season we are excited to open a new exhibit that focuses on shipwrecks and ship emergencies in Casco Bay. Ranging from the desperately tragic to the merely inconvenient, these incidents help the visitor understand the dangers and complications of water travel before radar, depth finders, and other navigational aids made vessels safer.
Our exhibit team has been hard at work all winter to tell the story of local shipwrecks—some famous, some relatively unknown, including one that happened on Peaks Island! How wrecks resulted in improvements in navigational aids or regulations is woven into the narrative. Hands-on elements add fun to the experience!
Congratulations and thanks go out to our exhibit team:
Guest Curator: Susan Hanley
Exhibit Designer: Eric Eaton
Project Manager: Holly Hurd-Forsyth
This exhibit is generously
sponsored by Island Lobster Co.
