Our Stratford logo carries that oyster shell over "1636," the year of the Connecticut Colony and the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Connecticut place. Printed black-and-white with the worn look of an old oyster-crate label or a seaside sign, the shell reads as shoreline Connecticut: the harbor, the Sound, the long maritime past. What makes this one Stratford is the place behind it — the 1639 oyster town, the lighthouse on the Sound, Shakespeare's namesake on the Housatonic, and the birthplace of the American helicopter.
The Paugussett who lived along the Housatonic called this shore Cupheag — "place of shelter." In 1639 a group of Puritan families led by the Reverend Adam Blakeman settled at the river's mouth, and in 1643 the town was formally named Stratford, for Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon in England. For its first two centuries Stratford lived off the water: oystering and shipbuilding on the Housatonic, wharves and fishing boats, the 1750 Georgian house of Captain David Judson still standing as a reminder of the colonial harbor town.
Why People Visit Stratford Connecticut
Stratford draws visitors with a rare mix of colonial harbor history, Long Island Sound shoreline, and aviation heritage. Travelers find it both a 1639 oyster town with a lighthouse and beaches and the birthplace of the American helicopter, with the quiet, layered character of the Connecticut shore. It is historic, maritime, and unmistakably New England.
