It rose from the ashes. In July 1779 British and Hessian troops burned this little harbor village to the ground. The people rebuilt it house by house — and the Greek Revival captain's homes they raised still line Harbor Road today. By the 1890s their rebuilt harbor was shipping a hundred thousand barrels of onions a year to New York and the southern ports. A burned village, an onion port, and one of the most intact streetscapes on the Connecticut shore — this is Southport, the harbor village of Fairfield, and this page tells its story.
Long before it had an English name, the shore here was Sasqua — an Indigenous village of Quiripi-speaking people, part of the Paugussett and Pequot world of the Connecticut coast. In 1639 it became the western edge of the new town of Fairfield, known simply as "Mill River" for the grist mill turning on its banks by 1662. A wharf went in by 1769, and the little river mouth on Long Island Sound began its long life as a working harbor.
Why People Visit Southport Connecticut
People come to Southport for one of the best-preserved harbor villages on the Connecticut shore: Greek Revival houses built by shipping and banking wealth, a stone library, and a quiet yacht harbor on Long Island Sound. It's small, refined, and walkable — a village that rebuilt itself after 1779 and has kept its 19th-century streetscape intact ever since.
