A collection of artifacts that helps tell the fascinating stories of Fairfield and its people
The Fairfield Museum preserves and makes available to the public a wide range of materials on the history of Fairfield, surrounding communities, Fairfield County, and the colony and state of Connecticut. Our Museum Collection includes paintings, prints, photographs, furniture, decorative arts, archeological objects, and many other types of artifacts that help tell the fascinating stories of Fairfield and its people. You can search part of our Collection through a state-wide collaborative database called Connecticut Collections. Not all of our objects are available online, but we continually add items so please check back.
The Fairfield Museum’s Research Library includes publications, genealogies, historical manuscripts, rare books, and published histories on Fairfield and Connecticut history. Our Research Library is also home to the Collier Collection, an extensive library compiled by former State Historian Dr. Christopher Collier, making the Fairfield Museum’s library one of the most complete resources for Connecticut history.
Click here to view our object collection
Conservation Through Photography
The Mabel Osgood Wright Photograph Collection
Mabel Osgood Wright was a conservationist who focused on preserving New England’s wildlife and countryside through photography. Our collection of Wright’s work includes rare glass slides, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and stereograph cards.
View the Collection HereCollection Highlights
Families in Fairfield
- Family registers: embroidered, painted, printed
- Family portraits
- Multi-generation family manuscript collections
- Multi-generation collections of clothing
- Album and friendship quilts
Doing Business in Fairfield
- Southport Bank items, including bank note printing plates
- Currency and coins
- Early 19th-century store items
- 18th and 19th-century merchants’ account books
- 20th-century business record collection
- Household account books recording barter and trade
Maritime
- Captain’s shipping papers, logs, letters, etc.
- Cargo, vessel, captain, and license listings
- Navigational tools and charts
- Captains’ portraits
- Ship portraits and maritime paintings
- Ship flags including a rare set of Marryat Code flags
- Ship’s medicine chest from the Garland, mid 19th c.
- Items purchased abroad, including garments of imported textiles
- Records (e.g., account books) of local products for export
Wartime in Connecticut
- Military uniforms and accouterments, such as powder horns and canteens
- Arms and weapons from the mid-18th century to WWI
- World War I & World War II posters
- World War II Home Front records and items: scrapbooks, photographs, and ration books
- Town Guard: flags, uniforms, photographs, scrapbooks
- Civil Defense items: World War II and Cold War era
- Nike missile site Information