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New London keeps two seafaring identities at once. There is the whaling city — Whale Oil Row, the old harbor, the 1833 Custom House, and the lights that still guide ships in: New London Harbor Light, raised in 1801 and the oldest and tallest lighthouse in Connecticut, and the offshore Ledge Light of 1909, square on its house out in the channel. And there is the Coast Guard city — the academy on the Thames, the cadets, and the Eagle standing out under sail, one of the last great square-riggers flying the American flag. Between them runs the Thames itself, with the ferries pulling out for Orient Point and Block Island, the Amtrak trains along the waterfront, and the working harbor that has defined the place since 1646.
What it turned to was whaling. New London had chased whales since the early 1700s, but the trade peaked in the 1840s: in 1847 the port passed Nantucket to stand second only to New Bedford, and by mid-century it was the second-busiest whaling port in the world. The fortunes that came home built the Greek Revival mansions of Whale Oil Row, and in 1833 — at the height of that wealth — the city raised a Custom House on Bank Street designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument; it is the oldest U.S. Custom House still in operation, and when the schooner Amistad was towed into the harbor in 1839, it was this waterfront that received her.
Why People Visit New London Connecticut
People come to New London for its deep maritime history and its working-harbor life — the whaling heritage, the Coast Guard Academy, the lighthouses and ferries, the literary thread of Eugene O'Neill. It is a real seaport, not a recreated one: a small Connecticut city with a great harbor and a long view down the Thames toward the Sound.
