The twentieth century brought the shoreline a new role. As railroads and then Interstate 95 tied the coast to the cities, Clinton grew into a shoreline suburban community — a place to live and summer as much as to work the water. Schools, neighborhoods, and beach colonies filled in behind the harbor; the marinas filled with pleasure boats where the oyster schooners had anchored; and the premium outlets by the highway now draw shoppers from across the state to a town that once shipped its wealth out by water. The Town Beach and its neighbors made the shore a family destination, and the harbor filled with weekend sails.
The Collegiate School's founding here was no accident of geography: its first rector, the Reverend Abraham Pierson, was the town's own minister, and for the school's first years the whole college was wherever Pierson happened to be teaching — his parsonage, in what is now Clinton. He died in 1707 and lies here still; the school moved to Saybrook that year and then, in 1716, to New Haven, taking the name Yale College in 1718 for its benefactor Elihu Yale. Clinton kept the beginning: Pierson's bronze statue stands on East Main Street, and the elementary school around the corner carries his name. For its first fifteen years the college had no campus at all — Yale's oldest classroom, Clinton likes to say, was a minister's front room.
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.
