Groton's stories run to the water. The town took its name from Groton, the Suffolk manor of John Winthrop, who led the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the river it sits on, the Thames, is named for London's — though locals say it plainly, "Thaymes," not the English way. They'll tell you Groton built more than seventy submarines for the fleet in a single world war, and that for decades the new boats slid down the ways straight into the Thames, the way the Nautilus did in 1954. Down at Fort Griswold every September, the town still gathers to remember the men who fell in 1781. The harbor that made Groton a target in the Revolution is the same deep water that made it the Submarine Capital of the World — the whole story turns on that one stretch of river.
The Pequot people lived along these coves and rivers long before the colonists — their presence at the Gungywamp site inland reaches back thousands of years. Groton was settled as part of New London and incorporated as its own town in 1705, growing into one of New England's busy Thames-River shipbuilding and whaling ports. On September 6, 1781, that prosperity made it a target: a British force under the turncoat Benedict Arnold raided the Thames, and at Fort Griswold roughly 165 Connecticut militia under Colonel William Ledyard made an outnumbered last stand. They were overwhelmed, and most of the defenders fell. The town never forgot them — in 1830 it raised a 135-foot granite obelisk, the Groton Monument, over the battlefield to the dead. A U.S. Navy yard followed on the Thames in 1868, and in the twentieth century Groton became the cradle of the American submarine.
Why People Visit Groton Connecticut
- Tour the free Submarine Force Museum and step aboard the Historic Ship Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine, berthed on the Thames.
- Walk the ramparts of Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park and climb the 135-foot Groton Monument for views over the harbor.
- Hike or bike the wooded trails of Bluff Point State Park out to its tidal coves and rocky point.
- Visit Avery Point — the Branford House mansion, the University of Connecticut campus lawns, and Avery Point Light, the last lighthouse built in Connecticut.
- Relax at Eastern Point Beach, a small family cove with breakwater views across the river mouth.
- Take a guided tour of the Gungywamp State Archaeological Preserve to see its colonial stone chambers and double stone circle.
