This is the reason to come to Newport News. Founded in 1930 by Archer Huntington, son of the shipping magnate who built the city's shipyard, the Mariners' Museum holds one of the largest maritime collections in the Western Hemisphere: more than 32,000 objects, from figureheads and scrimshaw to a complete Bond steam yacht and the world's only intact wing of a wooden warship from the age of sail.
The headline exhibit is the USS Monitor Center, which houses the recovered turret, engine and propeller of the Civil War ironclad that fought the CSS Virginia (Merrimack) at Hampton Roads in 1862 — the first battle ever between ironclad ships. You can see the conservation team at work through enormous viewing windows, salt being slowly leached out of iron that has been on the seabed for over a century. The 550-acre park around the museum has five miles of trails around Lake Maury and is a fine walk in itself.