H. Lee White Maritime Museum — Attraction in City of Oswego

The H. Lee White Maritime Museum is a nice museum that tells the story of Oswego and its maritime activity. There are many one-of-a-kind experiences to be had here including visiting a historic lighthouse, seeing a WW2 D-Day tugboat, and being able to see and walk on a floating derrick boat. The museum itself has two floors of maritime artifacts that you will not see almost anywhere else. Upon entrance to the museum you will notice the large paintings that are displayed. The paintings depict the history of Oswego and were originally displayed in the Pontiac Hotel. When the hotel went out of business they were brought here. The rest of the indoor museum has artifacts from Great Lakes shipwrecks, a Fresnel Lens used in a lighthouse, and weapons from wars at nearby Fort Ontario. The outside of the museum has some cool boats to see as well. The LT-5 Major Elisha K Henson is a special piece of WW2 history. The tugboat was in the English Channel on D-Day and actually shot down a German plane when the tugboat came under attack. Today, the LT-5 is the last remaining tug boat from WW2 anywhere in the world. Derrick Boat 8 is located right next to the LT-5 and is an interesting piece of history that worked on the NY State Barge Canal. Many people going to this museum do the lighthouse tour. To get on the lighthouse tour you must reserve your ticket ahead of time. It is well worth the experience. Overall, this is a must stop if you’re in Oswego. There is much maritime history presented here in an...

Pulled into the parking lot and saw The Dredge and the tugboat and there was parking there so we stopped walked up inside and saw that you could do a self tour through an app or just self-guided. Then we went over to the tugboat read the information boards there and saw that you could not go on it to view it until summer of next year-June 2024. Then we walked down to the actual Maritime Museum where there was more parking and where we probably should have stopped at first. There was no signage to direct you to the museum first. So after looking at the dredge and the tugboat we now had to pay $10 to go through a small museum that while somewhat informative I feel is a little overpriced especially since there was nobody there that seemed very knowledgeable or willing to provide some extra informationto make the museum more interesting. Gift shop had some decent stuff. It would have definitely been worth the $10 if the price of admission included actually touring on the tugboat. Unfortunately unless you also purchase a separate ticket you have no access to get close enough or even take decent pictures unless you have a professional camera of the lighthouse. Unless you are a true maritime buff this one is a...

Really nice historic Maritime museum. There is a store in there where you can purchase some nice items. There are some great paintings and exhibits and two floors of things to look at. It's also good for children. I went during the Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival on 5/17/25. Which was cut short due to bad weather, but it was nice because everything is indoors at the Maritime Museum. This is a nice place also because it is adjacent to the pier where several large vessels are tied up. One of them is the historic tugboat that was used in the Normandy invasion in World War II on D-Day. It's a nice location because it's right on the water and there's a lot to see. They are accepting donations there. If you have some extra money to spare to help this good cause, showing the history of Oswego's Waterfront as well as some other things that are very interesting and important to the history of the...