Greenwich's stories run to the shore and the easel. They'll tell you the town took its name from Greenwich, the royal borough of London — which is why it shares a name with so many places it has nothing else in common with. They'll tell you the Impressionists chose Cos Cob because the afternoon light came off the harbor just so, and that the lilacs still blooming at the Bush-Holley House were planted in the colony's day. And every account of the Revolution here circles back to one steep hill and one general who would not be caught. Greenwich's neighboring villages — Cos Cob, Old Greenwich, and Riverside among them — each keep their own corner of that history along the same stretch of Sound.
What's with Putnam's Ride? Look closely at the seal of the Town of Greenwich and you'll find a man on horseback plunging down a cliff. That is "Old Put" — General Israel Putnam, the sixty-one-year-old Revolutionary War general — on the morning of February 26, 1779. By the local account, Putnam was at Knapp's Tavern (today's Putnam Cottage) when British cavalry under General Tryon surprised the town. Cut off from his outnumbered men, Putnam spurred his horse to the brow of a steep rocky slope above the old Post Road — Put's Hill — and rode straight down it, threading the stone face while the dragoons reined up at the top, unwilling to follow. He escaped to raise the alarm. Historians have long debated the exact details, but Greenwich never doubted the spirit of it: the ride is on the town seal, the police patch, and the name of half the landmarks in town. It is the moment Greenwich chose to define itself by — daring to go where no one dared follow.
Why People Visit Greenwich Connecticut
Greenwich draws people who love art, history, and the coast in equal measure. It is the birthplace of an American art movement, a Revolutionary-era town with its founding legend on the seal, and a Gold Coast shoreline of harbors, marshes, and beaches on Long Island Sound. Visitors come for the rare combination — fine-art heritage you can walk through, colonial history you can stand on, and a refined coastal town that wears its wealth quietly, all an easy train ride from New York.
