Formed in 1962, the Rocky Hill Historical Society's first mission was to save the Academy Hall. The Hall was built in 1803 as a navigation school to teach young sailors and future sea captains. Today the town's history is accessible to the public through the museum, library, and programs located in Academy Hall. The library contains book collections, manuscripts, stories, oral histories, photographs, and maps, and is open for research. The Academy Hall Museum displays artifacts, farm implements, military items, maritime history, technology, and costumes.

The museums offers exhibits and research library access.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum presents the history of maritime activity in Chesapeake Bay, one of the major maritime regions of the United States. The museum consists of nine buildings located on 18-acres of land. Topics covered include trans-Atlantic trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, naval history, boat building, Native American ways of life, and the various maritime uses of the Chesapeake Bay. Maritime professionals staff the museum to share their experiences with visitors.

The museum offers a variety of self-guided and guided tours for students, educational hands-on programs, lectures, sailing programs, summer camps, historic vessel preservation apprenticeships, interactive and traditional exhibits, a working boat yard, group overnight programs in the Hooper Strait Lighthouse, and a research library. The website offers a lesson plan on oystering.

The Mariner's Museum presents information and artifacts relevant to the field of maritime history. Highlights include more than 150 small vessels from over 36 countries; August F. Crabtree's miniature ships; displays on shipbuilding, cartographic, and navigational advancements between 1400 and 1700; the largest international maritime library in the western hemisphere; and the USS Monitor Center. The center includes a full-scale replica of the Monitor, the first U.S. Navy ironclad warship, used in the Civil War. The museum also owns and maintains a 550-acre park.

The museum offers exhibits, maritime science and history educational programs which complement state educational standards, scavenger hunts, distance learning programs, outreach speakers, lectures, research library access, research assistance, paddle boat rental, and fishing boat rental. Payment is required for research assistance. The website offers virtual exhibits, artifact of the month, and images for educational use.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum documents, preserves, and researches the maritime history of coastal North Carolina. All of the museum's programs and exhibits, both general and specialized, interpret the state's cultural maritime history and offer a larger national perspective on coastal environment and barrier island ecology. The museum holdings include more than 15,000 cultural artifacts and natural history specimens, some 2,000 photographs and negatives, and 1,000 flat documents. The material culture collection of more than 2,000 artifacts includes uniforms of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and U.S. Coast Guard, lifesaving gear and ephemera, fishing gear, decoys, boat models and half-hulls, a Fresnel lens, 200 woodworking tools, nets, sea chests, and maritime paintings and prints. The small craft collection includes 37 historic indigenous boats (including a rare Civil War-era split-log canoe), over 100 models and half-models, 24 outboard engines, and 60 sextants, compasses, telescopes, and plotting instruments that document coastal navigation.

The museum offers teacher workshops, educational programs delivered in-classroom and in conjunction with curricula, a summer science program which includes maritime history, and exhibits.

The Trust maintains the historic Sehner-Ellicott-von Hess House. This was the very building where Captain Meriwether Lewis trained with nationally renowned surveyor, Andrew Ellicott, on those navigational skills vital to the success of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition and now serves as the headquarters of the Trust. Visitors are welcome to tour this finely restored example of Georgian architecture and its exhibits outlining the story of its restoration and most famous inhabitant, Andrew Ellicott.

The house offers exhibits and tours.