Collection: Westbrook Connecticut

What's with the Turtle? In 1775, a Westbrook-born farmer's son named David Bushnell built a small, egg-shaped wooden vessel that could sink beneath the water and move under its own power — the Turtle, the world's first submarine used in combat. A Yale student at the time, Bushnell worked out ideas still used today: a ballast tank to dive and surface, and a hand-cranked screw propeller to move. It was one of the great feats of Revolutionary-era ingenuity, and it began with a farmer's son born here, on the Connecticut shore.

Where you're from. Where you love. Where you explored. Where you belong.

The town itself is older than its famous invention. Algonquian peoples lived along this shore long before European settlement; around 1648 the area was settled as the "Oyster River Quarter" of the Saybrook Colony — the seed colony from which a cluster of Connecticut towns grew. The West Parish formed its own church in 1724, the place was renamed Westbrook in 1810, and in 1840 it was incorporated as a separate town. The "Oyster River" name says it plainly: this has always been a shoreline town.

The Turtle's one combat mission is a story of its own. Bushnell's brother Ezra trained for months as its pilot, then fell ill on the eve of the operation; Sergeant Ezra Lee of Old Lyme took the crank instead. Built and tested in secrecy on the Connecticut River, the Turtle was carried overland and by water to the war. On a September night in 1776, Lee steered the little craft beneath New York Harbor toward HMS Eagle, the British flagship, in history's first submarine attack. The mine never attached — but the concept was proven, and the age of undersea warfare had quietly begun. Benjamin Franklin was among those who took note of Bushnell's trials, and George Washington later judged the work "an effort of genius."

Then the inventor vanished. After the war and a failed venture in France, Bushnell dropped from public life entirely — and resurfaced, years later, in Georgia as "Dr. David Bush," a quiet country physician and teacher. Only after his death in Warrenton in 1824 did neighbors learn that the doctor down the road had invented the submarine. His hometown never forgot: the old red Bushnell homestead near the village is kept today as his memorial.

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.

Middle Beach, Westbrook — shoreline cottages on the Long Island Sound, from the town's summer-resort era.

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.

Our Westbrook logo carries Connecticut's oyster shell over "Connecticut · Est. 1636," tying the town to the colonial founding of Connecticut — the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Connecticut place. Printed black-and-white with the worn look of an old oyster-crate label, the shell reads as the shoreline in shorthand: tidal, maritime, salt-aired. What makes this one Westbrook is the story behind it — the Oyster River, the Sound, and the birthplace of the submarine.

Westbrook holds two stories at once: a working shoreline town on the salt marshes of Long Island Sound, and the unlikely birthplace of an invention that changed the sea. Our Westbrook designs gather that identity — the oyster-and-1636 emblem, the Sound shoreline, and the Turtle's quiet claim to history — into wearable form. Westbrook, Connecticut — birthplace of the world's first combat submarine, on the salt marshes of Long Island Sound since 1648.

Middle Beach, Westbrook — the sandy Sound shoreline that made the town a resort by the 1870s.

Westbrook, Connecticut — Travel Guide

Visiting Westbrook Today

Westbrook is an easygoing Long Island Sound shoreline town — beaches, salt marshes, a working harbor, and a historic town center on the Boston Post Road, set quietly along the Connecticut shore between the river towns and the Sound.

Beaches, Marsh & Harbor in Westbrook

For visitors looking for things to do in Westbrook, Connecticut:

• Spend the day at the town beaches along Long Island Sound, including Middle Beach and West Beach.
• Look out to Salt Island and the Duck Island breakwater from the shore.
• Walk the salt-marsh edges where the Pochaug and Menunketesuck rivers share a common mouth.
• Stroll the Westbrook Town Center Historic District and the town green on the old Post Road.
• Visit the Bushnell memorial house near the village and the local historical society for the submarine and shipbuilding story.
• Watch the boats at Pilots Point Marina, one of the largest marinas on the East Coast.
• Browse the shoreline shops and dining along the Boston Post Road.

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.

Where you're from. Where you love. Where you explored. Where you belong.

Kindred Cities

Greetings to visitors from Whitstable, England and Charlottetown, Canada — like-minded quiet shore towns of oysters and easy summers.

Westbrook is a small, easygoing Connecticut beach town, and Whitstable and Charlottetown share its salt-air calm. Whitstable, on the Kent coast, is England's beloved oyster town, famous for its native beds and its festival; Charlottetown, the gentle capital of Prince Edward Island, sets its harbour among the seafood and red shores of the Gulf; Westbrook keeps its low beaches, its marinas and its summer cottages along Long Island Sound. Three quiet coasts where the shellfish are fresh and the pace is unhurried.

Westbrook is made for the visitor after a quiet shore: gentle beaches and tidal marshes on the Sound, boats in the rivers, fresh seafood by the water, and the unhurried feel of a true Connecticut summer town. Come and visit us soon.

When you plan the trip, the Town of Westbrook and the Connecticut Office of Tourism are the place to start.

Where you're from. Where you love. Where you explored. Where you belong.

For deeper reading on the Westbrook history described here — David Bushnell and the Turtle submarine, the Oyster River Quarter origin within the Saybrook Colony, the shipbuilding and menhaden heritage, and the summer-resort era — it may be useful to consult (1) the Westbrook Historical Society, (2) the Westbrook Public Library local-history collection, (3) the Connecticut State Library and Connecticut Historical Society, (4) the Town of Westbrook clerk's records office, and (5) the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office. For travel and visitor information, it may be useful to contact (1) the Connecticut shoreline visitor and tourism bureaus, (2) the local chamber of commerce, (3) the Westbrook parks and recreation department, (4) the Connecticut State Parks office, and (5) regional shoreline and NWS marine advisories.