Our Madison retro logo uses the Connecticut oyster-shell motif over "Connecticut - Est. 1636," emphasizing coastal identity and the colonial founding of the state. Black-and-white styling mirrors oyster crate labels and maritime signage — rugged, timeless, retro in style — bridging Madison's layered heritage: the Hammonassett people's land and sea, colonial endurance, and the summer-town century. On merchandise it reads authentic and vintage — an emblem of Connecticut shoreline pride.
The peninsula came first, and the name came with it. The Hammonassett people of the Eastern Woodland farmed and fished the peninsula for centuries before contact — the name means "where we dig holes in the ground," a reference to their agricultural way of life on the broad flat above the marsh and the sand. The first English colonists arrived in 1639. By 1641 the eastern half of the new town of Guilford had been settled as East Guilford and the land that would become Madison was farmed and fished for the next 185 years under its old name. In 1826 East Guilford incorporated as a town in its own right and took the name of the man who had been the fourth President of the United States — James Madison — and on the Town Green at the center of the village, one of the oldest in Connecticut, the white-clapboard houses of the planters and the 1838 Greek Revival First Congregational Church set the shape of the village that is still there today. The Deacon John Grave House on the Boston Post Road, built in 1685 and now operated as a museum by the Deacon John Grave Foundation, is one of the oldest houses in Connecticut and stayed in the Grave family for nine generations until 1978. The Allis-Bushnell House is a few doors down, the 1838 church faces the green, and Scranton Library sits on Boston Post Road. Then, in 1989, a former tax accountant named Roxanne Coady opened an independent bookstore on the same Boston Post Road, named it R.J. Julia after her grandmother, and over the next thirty-five years built it into one of the most-cited independent bookstores in the country — three hundred author events a year, Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year 1995-96, a national reputation for putting the right book in the right hand. The town green, the 1685 saltbox, the church, the library, the bookstore, and the two miles of sand on the Sound — that's Madison. On Hammonasset shore since 1641, on the green since 1641, on the Sound since long before that, and a public beach since 1920.
Why People Visit Madison Connecticut
- Spend a day at Hammonasset Beach State Park — two miles of sandy beach on Long Island Sound, the largest shoreline state park in Connecticut, open to the public since July 18, 1920, with a boardwalk, campground, and picnic groves.
- Walk out to Meigs Point at the eastern end of the park — rocky headland views over the Sound — and visit the Meigs Point Nature Center for tide-pool touch tanks and salt-marsh exhibits.
- Stroll the Madison Town Green, one of the oldest in Connecticut, with the 1838 Greek Revival First Congregational Church facing it.
- Tour the Deacon John Grave House on the Boston Post Road — the 1685 saltbox that is one of the oldest houses in Connecticut, home to nine generations of the Grave family and now a museum.
- Visit the Allis-Bushnell House, the Madison Historical Society's museum a few doors down the Post Road.
- Browse the independent bookstore on the Boston Post Road that draws readers and authors from across the region — hundreds of author events a year on a colonial-era main street.
- Walk Madison Center — clapboard shops, cafes, and an art-house cinema along the Boston Post Road, built for window-shopping and ice cream.
- Paddle or birdwatch the lower Hammonasset River estuary and the salt marshes behind the beach.
- Fish or watch the boats along the East River and Neck River town shorelines.
- Circle Tuxis Pond on the walking path just behind the village center.
