Clinton holds onto its history with unusual care. The 1789 Stanton House survives as one of Connecticut's notable early house museums; the Clinton Village Historic District along East Main Street — 120 acres of colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival streetscape — joined the National Register in 1994; and Liberty Green, the little triangle where the militia once drilled, still anchors the center. The Historical Society keeps the long story close, the Town Dock still works, and every summer the Bluefish Festival fills the harborfront the way the oyster fleets once did.
The harbor also launched the town's greatest fortune. Charles Morgan, born on East Main Street in 1795 to a shipowning family, left for New York at fourteen and built an empire remembered as the beginning of American coastal shipping — the first scheduled steamship line from New Orleans to Galveston, routes to Corpus Christi and Havana, iron works on the East River, railroads across Louisiana and Texas, and a running rivalry with Cornelius Vanderbilt himself. Morgan City, Louisiana wears his name. So does the gift he sent home: in 1871 he built Clinton a high school, endowed its upkeep, and the Morgan School — his statue out front — still graduates the town's seniors today.
Why People Visit Clinton
Clinton offers the Connecticut shoreline at its most relaxed — a real harbor town with beaches, marinas, and a colonial Main Street, plus the surprising distinction of being where Yale began. Visitors come for the water, the history, and the easy shoreline pace, and stay for the beaches, the harbor, and the oysters.
