The New England Carousel Museum was founded in 1989, in Bristol, Connecticut, as a for-profit Museum by a local restoration firm while expanding their company. In 1990, they relinquished any and all proprietorship to the operation and assets of the Museum to a Board of Directors who applied for and relieved non-profit status for the Museum.

A full-time museum professional was hired as executive director on August 1, 1991. At that time the staff was restructured to create ad department of public education, and exhibition development team, a public relations function, a procedure for operations, a structure for volunteer involvement, a membership structure, a long term loan agreement, a collection management policy, and archives, and a need to begin serious research on the collection pieces and the subject matter.

The carousel, c. 1914, was created by Soloman Stein and Harry Goldstein, owners of the Artistic Carousel Company of Brooklyn, New York. In 1974 the Knox Foundation rescued the carousel from the Meyers Lake Amusement Park in Canton, Ohio and brought it to Hartford to help with the revitalization of the downtown. Before being brought to Canton, Ohio, the carousel was operational in Albany, New York from 1914 to 1940.