Guilford Connecticut Holiday Ornament - Red Shack on Grass Island

Guilford was started with a contract. In the spring of 1639, on shipboard between Surrey and the New England coast, twenty-five Puritan planters signed the Guilford Covenant — how they would govern themselves, divide the land, and build a town — before they had ever seen it. That September they purchased the land from Shaumpishuh, the woman who was sachem of the Menunkatuck band of the Quinnipiac — her people had worked this shore for generations, and like most colonial land deals it was an exchange weighted toward the newcomers; that honesty belongs in the story, as does she. Whitfield himself, like a number of Puritan householders of standing, held enslaved people in his household — part of the record too. The settlers named the town for Guildford in Surrey, and Guilford incorporated in 1718.

Our Guilford retro logo uses Connecticut's clam shell motif, the brand-wide shellfish emblem of every Merlin Classics CT shoreline town, symbolizing shoreline abundance and resilience. The clam reflects heritage, while "1636" ties the design to the Connecticut Colony's founding era — Guilford itself was settled three years later in 1639, but the colony-wide "1636" date is the brand-pattern anchor across our Connecticut towns. Its black-and-white styling is retro, resembling oyster crate labels and coastal signage. The motif bridges Guilford's dual identity: colonial farming and shoreline town and modern shoreline community. On merchandise it conveys authenticity, resilience, and pride, retro in tone. The clam shell emblem honors Guilford's layered story, making it a vintage symbol of Connecticut shoreline tradition.

Why People Visit Guilford Connecticut

• Tour the Henry Whitfield House, the 1639 stone house Reverend Henry Whitfield built the year he founded the town — the oldest stone house in New England, the oldest house in Connecticut, and the first house museum in Connecticut, opened in 1899; operated today as the Henry Whitfield State Museum.
• Walk the Guilford Town Green, the twelve-acre village green laid out by the Twenty-Five Planters in 1639 and still surrounded by the white-clapboard houses of their descendants, with the 1830 Greek Revival First Congregational Church along one edge.
• Tour the Hyland House on Boston Street, the early-eighteenth-century house (long dated by tradition to the 1660s) preserved by the Guilford Keeping Society — one of the finest surviving early New England houses on its original site.
• Tour the Thomas Griswold House, the c.1764 colonial house on the road to Madison, with period furnishings and a working blacksmith shop on the grounds.
• Walk past the Medad Stone Tavern (1803), the Federal-era tavern just north of the green that has been maintained as a museum since the 1960s.
• Look offshore for Faulkner's Light, the 1802 stone tower on Faulkner's Island three miles out in the Sound — the second-oldest active lighthouse in Connecticut, with seasonal Saturday boat tours run by the Faulkner's Light Brigade volunteer group.
• Walk the Westwoods Trails, the forty-mile network of forest trails through ledges, kettle holes, glacial erratics, and beaver wetlands inland from the Sound — the largest preserved hiking area on the central Connecticut shoreline.
• Relax at Jacobs Beach, the small Sound-front town beach with a sandy crescent, picnic groves, and views east to the Madison shoreline.
• Visit Lake Quonnipaug for the inland lake views, the picnic area, and the seasonal swimming and fishing.
• Walk the ledgy granite country out toward the Branford town line — quarry territory in the late nineteenth century, when pink-grey stone cut from these shoreline ledges shipped out to building projects across the country.
• Visit Bishop's Orchards just north of the green for pick-your-own peaches in July and August and apples September through October — a continuous family-run orchard since 1871, five generations operating on the same land.
• Time a visit for the Guilford Fair, the September agricultural fair held on the fairgrounds every year since 1859 — one of the oldest continuous fairs in Connecticut.
• Stop at the Guilford Free Library on Park Street for the local-history room and the genealogy collection, the best public starting point for Guilford colonial research.