The Revolution reached the shore, too. Patriots blockaded the Milford stretch of the Boston Post Road, built Fort Trumbull for defense, and kept a lookout from Liberty Rock in Devon. The hardest story is the gentlest: in the winter of 1777, some two hundred sick American soldiers were put ashore from a British prison ship, and a Milford man named Captain Stephen Stow chose to care for them. He caught the smallpox he was tending and died of it, and the town has remembered him ever since.
A mile off Silver Sands Beach sits the town's most famous riddle: Charles Island, which the Paugusset called Poquahaug. At low tide a natural sandbar — a tombolo — rises out of the Sound and you can walk to it. The best-loved Milford legend says that in 1699 Captain Kidd, on his way to arrest in Boston, buried treasure there, iron chests of gold said to lie beneath the rocks and never found. The island is now a state-protected bird sanctuary, its woods a nesting rookery of herons and egrets, closed to visitors through the spring and summer — so the legend is best enjoyed from the beach, and the crossing only with the tide chart in hand.
Why People Visit Milford
Milford balances a historic green, a legendary island, and miles of easy shoreline. Visitors enjoy simple seaside walks, boardwalks, and small cultural stops between the beaches and the harbor. It is peaceful, family-friendly, and close to nature, with year-round appeal in its parks, paths, and public spaces. History and everyday coastal life sit side by side here, from the long Green and the colonial downtown to the oyster boats and the boardwalk beyond.
