The water came first. The Pequot people lived and fished at the mouth of the Thames, and the settlement that John Winthrop the Younger began here in 1646 was called Pequot until it was renamed New London in 1658 — for the city in England, on a river the colonists renamed the Thames to match. With one of the best deep-water harbors on the coast, New London became a shipbuilding and shipping town, and in the Revolution a base for privateers who captured hundreds of British vessels. That made it a target: on September 6, 1781, a British force led by Benedict Arnold burned much of the city and stormed Fort Griswold across the river. New London rebuilt — chartered as a city in 1784, it turned back to the sea.
What it turned to was whaling. Through the early and mid-1800s New London became the second-busiest whaling port on Earth, behind only New Bedford, its ships gone for years at a time chasing whales across the Pacific and Arctic. The fortunes that came home built the Greek Revival mansions still standing on Whale Oil Row. As whaling declined, the harbor found new work: the U.S. Coast Guard's officer school moved to Fort Trumbull in 1910, became the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1915, and built its permanent campus up the Thames in 1932. Since 1946 the academy's training barque Eagle has sailed from New London, and the city has carried a literary fame too — the playwright Eugene O'Neill spent his boyhood summers here, at the cottage on the harbor he later put on the stage.
Why People Visit New London Connecticut
- Visit the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and, when she's in port, the barque Eagle.
- Tour Fort Trumbull State Park, the granite fort with harbor views and coastal-defense exhibits.
- See New London Harbor Light and the offshore New London Ledge Lighthouse.
- Walk Whale Oil Row and the historic downtown around Bank Street and the 1833 Custom House.
- Spend a summer day at Ocean Beach Park, or catch a show at the Garde Arts Center.
- Ride the Cross Sound Ferry across to Orient Point, or sail for Block Island.
