Welcome to the New London County Historical Society

The New London County Historical Society was established in 1870 and purchased the Shaw Mansion in 1907. The Shaw Mansion was built in 1756 and serves as the Society’s headquarters and houses its vast collection of material culture artifacts and archives. NLCHS provides tours of our period decorated rooms and permanent exhibits to visitors while assisting researchers in our Research and Genealogy Library. Its climate controlled vault stores documents from the eighteenth century including the Joshua Hempsted Diary.

11 Blinman Street | New London, CT 06320
(860) 443-1209 | Info@nlchs.org

Tours: Thursdays 12-4 p.m., or by appointment
*Last tour given at 3:15 p.m.

Research is by Appointment only, Wednesday-Friday

Want to know more about a 100-year old incident in your town? Have an elusive ancestor? Bought a house and would like to write up its history for your family? Explore the basics of doing traditional and online research in a four-session course: March 20 and 27, April 3 and April 10.

Nancy Steenburg, PhD will be speaking on April 20th at the Otis Library about Frances Manwaring Caulkins, both about Caulkins’s life and work in Norwich, but more specifically about her involvement in the abolition movement in Norwich, where she was the first president of the Norwich Female Anti-Slavery Society.

On Saturday June 8th from 10:00am– 1:00pm, NLCHS will offer free tours of the Shaw Mansion in honor of CT Open House Day. At 2:00pm, we’ll host a lecture titled: Local Connections: Finding the H.M.S. Resolute. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Looking for something FUN and constructive for your student to do this summer? Sign them up for one of our weekly museum camp sessions this summer! We have three weekly camp sessions to choose from: July 15th – 19th, July 22nd – 26th, July 29th – August 2nd.

Visit our Events page for a fuller explanation of camp objectives, activities and a downloadable application.

Membership in the New London County Historical Society, Inc. helps to support the work of the Society in preserving New London County’s history for future generations to study and enjoy.

NLCHS has a variety of internship and volunteer opportunities available! We have unpaid internship opportunities in collections, research, marketing, and program development.

We’re looking for volunteers who are interested in being docents and researchers! Volunteering or interning with NLCHS is a great way for the individual to learn more about the history and life of New London, and the county.