The peninsula passed into colonial hands in 1712, acquired by James Morgan through a land lottery; the earliest surviving house, the Yeomans place on Palmer Cove, dates to about 1713. Growth was slow — there were still only a handful of houses by the 1820s — because the point was nearly an island, cut off to the northwest and open to the water everywhere else. It kept the isolated, end-of-the-road feeling that the village has never quite lost.
Around the yards grew a fishing village. Noank ran a fleet of more than sixty vessels, many of them share-owned by the families who crewed them, and the harbor filled with the work of fishing, oystering, and lobstering. A velvet mill opened in 1905; the Connecticut State Lobster Hatchery took root around 1912; and the lobster shacks that still steam at the water's edge carry the same trade forward. Noank has always made its living from the Sound.
Why People Visit Noank
Noank rewards visitors who like their shoreline quiet and real — a working harbor instead of a boardwalk, a dense historic village instead of a strip. People come for the boatyards and the lobster shacks at the water's edge, for the walk through the cottage-lined historic district, and for the view out to the Sound from the end of the point. It is peaceful, photogenic, and unmistakably a Connecticut fishing village.
