The modern town keeps all of it within a few square miles: a Main Street of nineteenth-century storefronts ending at the marsh, the restored theater on Main Street drawing year-round audiences since 2009, the Amtrak station on the old junction, and the boardwalks at Saybrook Point looking out to Lynde Point Light. It is a town of about ten and a half thousand people with more shoreline than size — beaches, coves, two rivers named for oysters and hammocks, and the causeway running out to Fenwick.
Saybrook Colony, founded 1635 when Lion Gardiner built Saybrook Fort at the Connecticut River's mouth, is the oldest officially-chartered settlement in Connecticut — a year older than Hartford.
Why People Visit Old Saybrook Connecticut
- Relax at Harveys Beach, shallow waters and soft sand for easy family time on Long Island Sound.
- Walk Fort Saybrook Monument Park, interpretive signs marking the 1635 fort site near the marsh and the river mouth.
- Tour the General William Hart House (1767), a Federal-era home with period rooms and gardens reflecting eighteenth-century town life.
- Stroll Saybrook Point, boardwalks and marinas with views to Lynde Point Lighthouse (1803) at the river mouth.
- Visit the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center on Main Street, an intimate restored theater hosting year-round performances.
- Drive across the causeway to Fenwick borough, a quiet shoreline community of shingled houses on the peninsula between South Cove and the Sound.
