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.
When the railroad arrived in 1848-49 and Bridgeport's deeper harbor took over the coastal trade, Southport's shipping slowly wound down — and that, in a way, is why it survived so intact. The village settled into a quiet, prosperous residential life and never tore its old houses down. The Pequot Library, a stone Richardsonian-Romanesque landmark, opened in 1894. Southport-raised Joseph Earl Sheffield — who went on to found a railroad and endow Yale's Sheffield Scientific School — was one of many whose fortunes traced back to this harbor. Captain's houses, a stone library, a working yacht club, Long Island Sound at the end of the street.
Why People Visit Southport Connecticut
- Walk the Southport Historic District along Harbor Road and Pequot Avenue, lined with post-1779 Greek Revival and Federal captain's houses.
- Visit the Pequot Library (1894), a stone Richardsonian-Romanesque landmark with reading rooms and cultural programming.
- Look out over Southport Harbor at the mouth of the Mill River, with sailboats and the Pequot Yacht Club.
- Relax at Southport Beach, a small cove looking toward the harbor mouth on Long Island Sound.
- Find the Meeker House (about 1766), the lone survivor of the 1779 burning.
