Historic Northampton is a museum of local history in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts. Its collection of approximately 50,000 objects and three historic buildings is the repository of Northampton and Connecticut Valley history from the Pre-Contact era to the present.

Historic Northampton constitutes a campus of three contiguous historic houses, all on their original sites. The grounds themselves are part of an original Northampton homelot, laid out in 1654.

The Damon House (1813), built by architect, Isaac Damon, contains Historic Northampton's administrative offices and a Federal era parlor featuring Damon family furnishings and period artifacts. A modern structure, added in 1987, houses the museum and exhibition area. It features changing exhibits and a permanent installation, A Place Called Paradise: The Making of Northampton, Massachusetts, chronicling Northampton history.

Next Door, the Parsons House (1730) affords an overview of Colonial domestic architecture with its interior walls exposed to reveal evolving structural and decorative changes over more than two and a half centuries.
The Shepherd House (1796) contains artifacts and furnishings from many generations, including exotic souvenirs from the turn-of-the-century travels of Thomas and Edith Shepherd, and reflects one family's changing tastes and values.

The Shepherd Barn contains exhibits of antique farm implements, vehicles and a working blacksmith shop.

The depth and breadth of Historic Northampton's collections attract historians, scholars and students of New England material culture from around the world. The museum's wide-ranging collection includes more than 10,000 photographs, documents and manuscripts from the 17th to the 20th centuries, fine art, furniture, ceramics, glass, metals, toys, tools and implements, and an important collection of textiles and costumes