Long before it had an English name, the shore here was Sasqua — an Indigenous village of Quiripi-speaking people, part of the Paugussett and Pequot world of the Connecticut coast. In 1639 it became the western edge of the new town of Fairfield, known simply as "Mill River" for the grist mill turning on its banks by 1662. A wharf went in by 1769, and the little river mouth on Long Island Sound began its long life as a working harbor.
It rose from the ashes. In July 1779 British and Hessian troops burned this little harbor village to the ground. The people rebuilt it house by house — and the Greek Revival captain's homes they raised still line Harbor Road today. By the 1890s their rebuilt harbor was shipping a hundred thousand barrels of onions a year to New York and the southern ports. A burned village, an onion port, and one of the most intact streetscapes on the Connecticut shore — this is Southport, the harbor village of Fairfield, and this page tells its story.
Why People Visit Southport Connecticut
- Walk the Southport Historic District along Harbor Road and Pequot Avenue, lined with post-1779 Greek Revival and Federal captain's houses.
- Visit the Pequot Library (1894), a stone Richardsonian-Romanesque landmark with reading rooms and cultural programming.
- Look out over Southport Harbor at the mouth of the Mill River, with sailboats and the Pequot Yacht Club.
- Relax at Southport Beach, a small cove looking toward the harbor mouth on Long Island Sound.
- Find the Meeker House (about 1766), the lone survivor of the 1779 burning.
