Connecticut River Museum

The Connecticut River Museum is a U.S. educational and cultural institution based at Steamboat Dock in Essex, Connecticut that focuses on the marine environment and maritime heritage of the Connecticut River Valley.

The three-story Connecticut River Museum is located in a restored 1878 steamboat warehouse, which is now the only one of its type remaining on the river, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum opened to the public in 1975, with Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso as its first paid member and ex officio patron. The core of its collection came from the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, which provided the museum with a loan of nautical artwork, navigation equipment and maritime-related artifacts.

The museum's main and third levels offer changing exhibits, while its second level is home to a permanent exhibition on shipbuilding, which includes historical maps and models of steamboats and exhibits on the piscine species in the Connecticut River.