Long before the resorts and the regattas, this was the country of the coastal Algonquian people of the Norwalk shore, who fished the coves and river mouths and gathered shellfish along the Sound — and who left the village its name: Rowayton, worn through spellings like Roaton and Rhoeton on the old deeds. The Five Mile River, the tidal inlet that still defines the place, carried their canoes before it carried anything else.
The Revolution reached this shore in earnest in July 1779, when a British force under Governor Tryon landed on the Norwalk coast and burned the town — one of the war's harshest blows to Connecticut. The Five Mile River hamlet shared its parent town's ordeal and its Patriot cause: Norwalk's militia turned out to meet the raid, and the little shore settlement rebuilt with the rest. Rowayton's Revolutionary connection runs with the eleven towns of our Minutemen of Connecticut history, and the village wears the winter version in the Minuteman Holiday collection.
Why People Visit Rowayton
Rowayton offers the Connecticut shore at its most relaxed and characterful — sailing, art, and quiet beaches in a village that has kept its scale and its salt-water soul. Visitors come for the harbor and the shore parks and stay for the unhurried, distilled village that Norwalk keeps at its edge.
