What made the shore was the oyster. Through the nineteenth century, the Long Island Sound beds off this coast grew into some of the most productive oyster grounds on Earth, and the Five Mile River filled with the low, broad-decked sloops of the trade. Oystering here was a craft and a calendar — dredging the beds under sail, culling on deck, shucking by lantern light — and it reached its peak in the decades after the Civil War, when the village's wealth came up from the bottom of the Sound a bushel at a time.
What's with Rowayton? Rowayton is Norwalk's village on the Sound — a Five Mile River harbor of oysters, sailboats, and art that runs its own affairs as the Sixth Taxing District. Forty miles from New York and a world apart, it is the Connecticut shore at its most distilled: a working river mouth, a village center you can walk end to end, and salt water at the bottom of every street.
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.
