More From Clinton Connecticut
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Clinton Connecticut Holiday Ornament - Harbor Lobster Shack
Regular price $28.00 USDRegular price -
Clinton Connecticut Vintage Retro Premium Crewneck Sweatshirt - Black Logo
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Clinton Connecticut Vintage Retro Womens Fitted Ringspun Cotton Tee - Black Logo
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What’s with Yale and the lobstermen? Nothing, except that the lobstermen’s town is where Yale was born. On October 9, 1701 the General Court chartered the Collegiate School and named Pierson its rector; the plan was Saybrook, but his congregation would not let him go, so the college came to his house. The first student, Jacob Heminway of East Haven, walked in alone in March 1702 with thirty shillings for a year’s tuition and was, in his own words, all the college for the first half-year. Pierson taught Latin, Greek, logic and divinity at his own table, wrote the physics textbook the school lacked, and kept preaching on Sundays. When he died in March 1707 the trustees sent the students to Saybrook, the seniors to Milford, and in 1716 settled the school in New Haven, which took Elihu Yale’s name two years later. Yale kept the name. Clinton kept the man.
Clinton holds onto its history with unusual care. The 1789 Stanton House survives as one of Connecticut's notable early house museums; the Clinton Village Historic District along East Main Street — 120 acres of colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival streetscape — joined the National Register in 1994; and Liberty Green, the little triangle where the militia once drilled, still anchors the center. The Historical Society keeps the long story close, the Town Dock still works, and every summer the Bluefish Festival fills the harborfront the way the oyster fleets once did.
Why People Visit Clinton
Clinton offers the Connecticut shoreline at its most relaxed — a real harbor town with beaches, marinas, and a colonial Main Street, plus the surprising distinction of being where Yale began. Visitors come for the water, the history, and the easy shoreline pace, and stay for the beaches, the harbor, and the oysters.
