The Paugussett who lived along the Housatonic called this shore Cupheag — "place of shelter." In 1639 a group of Puritan families led by the Reverend Adam Blakeman settled at the river's mouth, and in 1643 the town was formally named Stratford, for Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon in England. For its first two centuries Stratford lived off the water: oystering and shipbuilding on the Housatonic, wharves and fishing boats, the 1750 Georgian house of Captain David Judson still standing as a reminder of the colonial harbor town.
The first real helicopter on Earth lifted off here. On a September morning in 1939, Igor Sikorsky's VS-300 rose into the air over the Housatonic River, and the American helicopter industry was born in Stratford. But the town is three centuries older than that flight — a 1639 Puritan harbor at the mouth of the river on Long Island Sound, named for Shakespeare's Stratford, with oyster boats, a colonial sea-captain's house, and a lighthouse on the Sound. This is Stratford, Connecticut, and this page tells its story.
Why People Visit Stratford Connecticut
Stratford draws visitors with a rare mix of colonial harbor history, Long Island Sound shoreline, and aviation heritage. Travelers find it both a 1639 oyster town with a lighthouse and beaches and the birthplace of the American helicopter, with the quiet, layered character of the Connecticut shore. It is historic, maritime, and unmistakably New England.
