The St Eustatius Historical Foundation Museum (STIMOC) is housed in the 18th-century Simon Doncker House in upper Oranjestad. The building itself is one of the best-preserved colonial merchant houses in the Dutch Caribbean — a solid stone structure with period rooms showing how a prosperous Statian merchant family would have lived at the height of the island's commercial glory.
The museum covers the full arc of Statia's history: the indigenous Arawak and Carib populations, the arrival of Dutch and English colonists, the explosive growth of the free port in the 17th and 18th centuries, the British sacking of 1781 (when Admiral Rodney plundered the island's warehouses), and the long, slow decline that followed. It also addresses the African slave trade that underpinned Statia's economy throughout the prosperous period. The collection is small but well-curated, and the staff are knowledgeable.