The museum is home to the last surviving steam-powered tugboat built in the Hudson River, the Mathilda.
The Rondout Creek Lighthouse served as a navigational aid for river traffic for over 100 years.
The museum grounds host a traditional boat-building school that teaches skills like wooden boat restoration.
The site includes a significant collection of artifacts from the 19th-century brick-making industry, which relied on the river for transport.
The museum actively maintains and operates a fleet of classic wooden vessels used for educational excursions.
The Hudson River Maritime Museum is located on the Rondout Creek waterfront in Kingston, New York, preserving the maritime history of the Hudson River Valley. The museum campus features an extensive collection of historic vessels, including the 1898 steam tug Mathilda and the solar-powered Solaris. Visitors can tour the 1915 Rondout Creek Lighthouse, accessible via a short boat ride from the museum docks. The indoor exhibits highlight the importance of the river for commercial transport, ice harvesting, and boat building. It functions as the primary research archive for Hudson River maritime lore. The museum operates a boat school offering traditional woodworking and boat-building workshops. Outdoor displays provide views of the confluence of the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River.
The museum docks provide a view of the Rondout Creek Lighthouse with the historic tugboats in the foreground.
Book your boat tour to the Rondout Creek Lighthouse well in advance, as capacity is limited and weather-dependent.
Wear comfortable, flat shoes as the waterfront docks and historic vessel decks have uneven surfaces.
Check the museum's schedule for seasonal boat tours on the Solaris, which offer a quiet, solar-powered perspective of the river.
Do not attempt to walk to the lighthouse; it is only reachable by the museum's official boat tours.
Open seasonally from spring through autumn; closed during winter months.
