So Guilford gathers a covenant signed at sea, a purchase from a woman sachem whose people came first, the oldest stone house in New England, a green that has held its shape for nearly four hundred years, an 1802 island light, and a fair that never stopped running — and our Guilford designs gather that into wearable form. Whether Guilford is your hometown, your green, your shoreline summers, or the town you still measure others against, wear the history. On the Green since 1639.
What’s with the Stone House? Half a mile south of the Guilford Green stands a house begun in 1639 and finished by the following spring — the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England. It was built for the town’s founding minister, Reverend Henry Whitfield, and its massive stone walls were meant to work twice: a home, and a fort stout enough to shelter the whole settlement. Before Guilford had a church it held services here; before it had a town hall it held meetings here. In 1899 it opened as the Henry Whitfield State Museum — Connecticut’s first state museum — and it stands today much as the town’s first winter found it: stone, steep-roofed, and permanent.
Why People Visit Guilford Connecticut
Guilford offers the oldest stone house in New England, one of the largest village greens in the country, four historic-house museums in walking distance of each other, an offshore lighthouse, forty miles of inland hiking, century-and-a-half-old family orchards, and a continuously running September fair. Visitors come for the Whitfield House, the green, the Hyland and Griswold houses, the granite shoreline, the apple and peach seasons at the orchards, the fair, and the simple shoreline pleasure of a village that has been holding its center since 1639. It is old, intact, and very Connecticut.
