Minutemen Connecticut Holiday Tribute

In every Connecticut town where a church steeple meets the sky and stone walls line old roads, there were once neighbors who answered a midnight knock, took up a musket, and stepped into the cold for us. The minutemen and town companies of Westport, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Southport, Danbury, Fairfield, Groton, Litchfield, and New Haven were ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing: they put their families, farms, and futures at risk so a new country could be born. This holiday season, our Minuteman tee series is a small way to honor their courage—and to thank every veteran who has stood a post since, from frozen picket lines to distant deployments. As you pull on these shirts, we hope you feel a thread of connection to those who went before us, and a quiet gratitude for all who still keep watch in our name.

Westport, Connecticut — Minutemen

Westport’s minutemen earned their place in Revolutionary lore on the sand and snow of Compo Beach. When nearly 2,000 British troops stormed ashore in April 1777, local farmers, shopkeepers, and fishermen grabbed their muskets, shadowed the column on the road to Danbury, then turned the enemy’s retreat into a running fight at Saugatuck Bridge and Compo Hill. Under local leaders like Gold Selleck Silliman, Westport minutemen and coastal sharpshooters made the redcoats pay for every step back to their ships. In later raids that burned nearby Greens Farms, Westport families hid grain, salt, and precious winter firewood behind stone walls the minutemen knew by heart, helping neighbors stay fed and warm through the darkest holiday weeks. While other towns saw set-piece battles, Westport’s citizen-soldiers specialized in shoreline pickets, midnight alarms, and marsh-to-hill ambushes that kept Long Island Sound’s icy horizon under watch so coastal families could safely gather by candlelight and give thanks for hard-won freedoms.

Norwalk, Connecticut — Minutemen

Norwalk’s minutemen stood their ground in one of Connecticut’s fiercest Revolutionary moments. In July 1779, as more than 2,600 British and Hessian troops splashed ashore at Calf Pasture Beach, Captain Stephen Betts and a small band of local minutemen made a defiant stand on Grumman Hill and the rocky heights above town, firing into the advancing columns even as they were badly outnumbered. The raid that followed burned roughly 130 homes, 100 barns, ships, shops, churches, flour mills, and salt works, leaving Norwalk more shattered than any other Connecticut town and earning the fight a reputation as the state’s largest Revolutionary battle. Yet Norwalk’s minutemen didn’t disappear with the smoke: they helped shepherd families inland, guarded rebuilt mills and salt sheds, and kept watch on the frozen harbor so that, even after the town’s worst winter, neighbors could still gather for the holidays with bread on the table and a stubborn hope for independence.

Redding, Connecticut — Minutemen

Redding’s minutemen guarded what later generations would call “Connecticut’s Valley Forge.” In the winter of 1778–79, General Israel Putnam’s division—thousands of exhausted veterans from New Hampshire, Canada, and Connecticut—huddled in log huts along the frozen ridges above town, placed there to shield the Danbury supply depot and watch both the Hudson River valley and Long Island Sound. Local Redding minutemen served as scouts and guides, slipping between outposts to track Tory sympathizers and any sign of British raiding parties that had marched through these hills during the Danbury raid just two years before. When snow closed the roads, they hauled firewood, guarded flour stores, and kept picket fires burning so nearby farms could grind grain and share scarce holiday meals in relative safety. Those bitter months of sentry duty and quiet courage gave Redding no grand battlefield name—but it gave Washington’s army the winter breathing room it desperately needed.

Ridgefield, Connecticut — Minutemen

Ridgefield’s minutemen turned their steep hill town into a stubborn roadblock on April 27, 1777, when the British tried to march back to the coast after burning Danbury. Local farmers and shopkeepers fell in with Continental officers David Wooster and Benedict Arnold, piling wagons, timbers, and stone across the north end of Town Street and forcing nearly 2,000 redcoats to fight straight through the village. Wooster was mortally wounded leading a daring flanking attack; Arnold had his horse shot from under him and narrowly escaped being bayoneted. Musket fire cracked past the Keeler family’s inn, where a British cannonball still lives in the corner post as a scar from the day Ridgefield stood in the road. In the winters that followed, town minutemen patrolled Ridgebury and the outlying farms, guarding stores of flour, salt, and firewood so that Ridgefield families could gather for the holidays in houses still standing, and give thanks that the war had not burned them out.

Southport, Connecticut — Minutemen

Southport’s minutemen guarded the little harbor at Mill River, today’s Southport, where Fairfield’s shoreline met Long Island Sound. When British troops under William Tryon came ashore to burn Fairfield in July 1779, Southport men used the dunes, creek mouths, and stone walls above the wharves as firing positions, covering families and livestock fleeing inland while sniping at the redcoats as they moved along the beach road. In the years of raiding that followed, Southport minutemen crewed fast whale-boats and small sloops that slipped out at night to shadow British tenders, cut loose captured American craft, and shepherd supply boats carrying flour, dried fish, and salt toward Washington’s hungry army. Winter only shifted their duties: they guarded crowded waterfront storehouses and root cellars, watched the frozen harbor for enemy sails, and made sure neighbors could still share scarce holiday meals by lamplight, grateful for a harbor that stayed American.

Danbury, Connecticut — Minutemen

Danbury’s minutemen were guardians of one of the Revolution’s busiest inland storehouses. In 1777 their town was stacked with barrels of flour, rum, pork, gunpowder, blankets, and tents bound for Washington’s army, all watched over by Colonel Joseph Platt Cooke and his neighbors drilling on the green. When British troops suddenly pushed up from the coast that April, Danbury’s small garrison could only delay them before the depots went up in smoke, filling the night with exploding kegs and burning wagons. The real story of Danbury’s minutemen came afterward: they helped lead refugees to safer farms, hid surviving powder and boots in distant barns, and rode by lantern light to guide Wooster, Arnold, and other leaders back toward the retreating column. Through the next hard winters, Danbury homes doubled as makeshift quartermaster posts, keeping sleds of food and firewood moving so soldiers and families alike could keep their holiday candles lit.

Fairfield, Connecticut — Minutemen

Fairfield’s minutemen stood between Long Island Sound and inland Connecticut long before the British fires of 1779 lit their sky. Drilling on the green under General Gold Selleck Silliman, these coastal farmers and boatmen kept watch from Black Rock to Mill River, ready to rouse the countryside at the first glint of redcoats across the water. When William Tryon’s fleet finally appeared that July, Fairfield’s minutemen fought from orchards, stone walls, and salt meadows, covering families as they fled toward Greenfield Hill while the town below was burned to chimneys and ash. What makes Fairfield’s story different is what came next: through brutal winters, its minutemen used small boats to ferry intelligence and supplies across the Sound, sheltered refugees from other burned towns, and helped rebuild mills and wharves so grain, salt fish, and firewood could move again. Their quiet, stubborn work meant holiday tables in Fairfield County held a little more warmth, light, and hope than the British intended.

Groton, Connecticut — Minutemen

Groton’s minutemen wrote one of Connecticut’s most tragic and heroic chapters on the rocky hilltop of Fort Griswold. On September 6, 1781, as Benedict Arnold’s redcoats burned New London across the river, fewer than 200 Groton minutemen and local farmers under Colonel William Ledyard refused to abandon the fort that guarded the Thames. They fought off three assaults, loading and firing until powder ran low and British bayonets poured over the walls. Ledyard was killed after offering his sword in surrender, and many defenders fell beside him—but their stand cost the British dearly and kept more troops from pushing inland. In the hard winters that followed, Groton’s surviving minutemen guarded scattered coastal farms, watched the icy river mouth for enemy sails, and made sure that families who’d lost fathers and sons at Groton Heights still had shared fires, simple holiday meals, and a story of courage to be quietly thankful for.

Litchfield, Connecticut — Minutemen

Litchfield’s minutemen watched over one of Connecticut’s quiet powerhouse towns of the Revolution. From 1776 on, the hilltop green above the village doubled as a parade ground and gateway to two inland supply depots and a Continental Army workshop, where wagons of flour, blankets, and gun parts were guarded by local farmers drilling with muskets at dusk. Litchfield horsemen linked up with Colonel Elisha Sheldon’s famed light dragoons, scouting icy back roads, escorting prisoners, and relaying dispatches between Washington’s lines and the Hudson Valley. In the Wolcott household, the town’s patriot families even helped melt down pieces of the toppled statue of King George III into musket balls—royal lead turned into freedom shot. Through bitter winters, Litchfield’s minutemen guarded those depots, watched over captured Loyalist officers, and kept the roads open so that soldiers and neighbors alike could face Christmas and New Year’s with bullets, bread, and a stubborn faith in independence.

New Haven, Connecticut — Minutemen

New Haven’s minutemen met the Revolution with books in one hand and muskets in the other. When British troops attacked on July 5, 1779, coming ashore at West Haven and East Haven, town minutemen, Yale students, and harbor boatmen fought side by side from stone walls, orchards, and the little fort at Black Rock, trying to hold the roads into the Green. Captain James Hillhouse led his student company into the fight, while legends grew around patriots like artilleryman Captain Phineas Bradley and the stubborn defenders who spiked guns rather than let them fall into British hands. After the raid, New Haven’s minutemen turned from open battle to round-the-clock watch: patrolling the frozen harbor, guarding powder and rum warehouses, and escorting wagon trains of flour inland. Their winter vigilance meant that, even with smoke scars still on church steeples, New Haven families could gather for the holidays with food, candles, and cause for thanks.

Explore Minuteman Holiday Tees

For deeper research into these stories, consider reaching out to local historical societies in Westport, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Southport, Danbury, Fairfield, Groton, Litchfield, and New Haven, as well as the Connecticut State Library and state archives. They preserve original records, letters, and artifacts from the minutemen and veterans whose courage this collection honors.