After Pierson died in 1707 the school moved to Saybrook, settled in New Haven in 1716 and took the name Yale College in 1718; Pierson’s statue stands on East Main Street.
The town took its modern name in the same era of ambition. Incorporated in 1838, separating at last from inland Killingworth, the shoreline parish named itself for DeWitt Clinton — the New York governor whose Erie Canal had just remade American commerce and inspired town names across the young country. The new Clinton carried its shipbuilding, fishing, and oystering trades through the 1800s as the Connecticut shoreline's quiet middle: never a city, never asleep.
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.
