Today Westbrook is a quiet Long Island Sound town of about seven thousand — salt marshes and a common river mouth, masts in the harbor at Pilots Point, the town green on the old Boston Post Road, and the Town Center Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017, that records three centuries of shoreline New England. Greek Revival and colonial homes along the old road still carry the markers of the "Descendants of Westbrook Settlers," and out in the marsh the cedar rise of Hawk's Nest keeps the shoreline's older geography in view. It is a town that wears its history lightly — and has more of it than almost anyone passing through would guess.
For a century Westbrook lived by the water — shipyards built from the white oak and chestnut of the local forests, oyster beds in the tidal rivers, and a menhaden fish-oil works out on Salt Island off Middle Beach. The Pochaug and Patchogue rivers share a single mouth here, spreading into broad salt marshes, with Duck Island and its breakwater offshore. By the 1870s the same shoreline had become a summer resort, its cottages filling each season with visitors drawn to the Sound.
Why People Visit Westbrook
Westbrook offers quiet shoreline New England with a remarkable story beneath it. Visitors come for the beaches, the marsh and harbor, the historic town center, and the distinction of standing in the birthplace of the submarine. It's low-key, scenic, and steeped in Long Island Sound maritime heritage.
