A Puritan town of 1639 at the mouth of the Housatonic, where Connecticut's first Anglican church gathered, oystermen raked the river, and Igor Sikorsky flew his first helicopter.

Fairfield County · Record checked October 12, 2026

52,355Population2020 census1
1639Foundedfirst called Cupheag, named Stratford by 16431
1707First Anglican churchthe first in Connecticut1
7,829Corsairs builtF4U fighters made in Stratford, 1940 to 19521
12National Registerplaces, all still standing2

Then and now

The same town 144 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

Bird's-eye view map of Stratford, Connecticut from 1882 by O.H. Bailey, restored by KNOWOL

1882

The bird's-eye view

By O.H. Bailey

Stratford drawn as if from the sky, with the Masonic Hall, the Steamboat Landing, the Congregational Meeting House, the Stratford Shipyard, Selby Pond and houses built in the 1700s, and a drawing of the town's original planned layout along the bottom.3

See the 1882 printMore about this map
Map of Stratford, Connecticut in 2026, with a numbered guide to 34 landmarks from Paradise Green to Lordship and Stratford Point

2026

Stratford today

By KNOWOL

Shaded land from Oronoque down to Lordship, 18,239 buildings drawn in their places, every street and the town line, and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Register sites marked.4

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Stratford

The Stratford Knockings

One Sunday in 1850, Dr. Phelps and his family came home from church to find their door hung with crape and, inside, a figure laid out and shrouded for the grave. For eight months or more after that, the house was full of rappings and thumpings. People told of notes floating down out of nowhere, and of flat-irons, ink bottles, pokers and bricks turned into weapons. Ministers came to drive the trouble out and went away puzzled. Hundreds walked down Elm Street to see for themselves, and crowds came in on every train. The village hackman did so well that he set up a huge yellow omnibus with a sign in big capitals: Mysterious Stratford Knockings. The house was later known as the Stratford Institute.5

Scatter, men

Abel Beach built the first house and barn on Stratford Point in 1767. In January 1777, American prisoners taken at Fort Washington were landed at the Point on their way home, and smallpox broke out in the family of Capt. John Brooks, who looked after the soldiers passing through town. In the War of 1812 a British warship anchored off the Point, and a sergeant and sixteen men were sent to guard the shore. On a black, windy night the sergeant saw something move and cried out for his men to scatter. At daylight the enemy turned out to be three mullein stalks waving in the wind. The first lighthouse went up in 1822, and that same year the keeper lost a cow to the mosquitoes.678910

Three feet off the ground

Igor Sikorsky chose Stratford for his aircraft factory in 1929. On September 14, 1939, outside the plant, he climbed into the open cockpit of an experimental helicopter called the VS-300, wearing his usual overcoat and fedora. He was 50 years old, the company's chief designer and its chief test pilot. Tied down by cables, the machine rose about three feet and stayed up for about ten seconds. The first free flight came on May 13, 1940. The VS-300 was the first helicopter with a single main rotor and a tail rotor, and that layout became the standard around the world. Sikorsky Aircraft is still based in Stratford, and every Marine One since 1957 has been built here.4111

Through the years

25 moments from 1639 to today.

  1. 1639Rev. Adam Blakeman, William Beardsley and a band of Puritan families settle at the mouth of the Housatonic.1
  2. 1643The plantation once called Cupheag is known as Stratford, after Stratford-upon-Avon.1
  3. 1646Stratford sends produce worth six pounds fourteen shillings to help poor students at Harvard College.12
  4. 1672Stratford's second church gets leave to move away, and most of its members go on to found Woodbury.13
  5. 1690Moses Wheeler, ninety-two years old, hands his ferry across the Housatonic to his son Samuel.14
  6. 1707The first Anglican church in Connecticut is founded in Stratford.1
  7. 1723David Judson builds his house on Academy Hill, and Christ Church is founded.15
  8. 1744A golden rooster goes up on the steeple of the new Christ Church.16
  9. 1757Col. Frasier's regiment winters in town, and his men take shots at the church weathercock.17
  10. 1764The town votes for the first time to limit the season for taking oysters.18
  11. 1767Abel Beach builds the first house and barn on Stratford Point.6
  12. 1773Families from Stratford make the first lasting settlement of Stratford, New Hampshire.19
  13. 1775After Lexington, Christ Church is locked and stays closed until the Revolution is over.16
  14. 1777Smallpox breaks out after freed prisoners from New York are landed at Stratford Point.7
  15. 1781Samuel Peters writes that Stratford, seen from the water, looks as fine as Canterbury.20
  16. 1785Lightning strikes the Congregational meetinghouse, and the church's early records burn with it.21
  17. 1797North Stratford breaks away as the town of Trumbull, eight years after Huntington, now Shelton.1
  18. 1812During the war, a militia guard at Stratford Point scatters from three mullein stalks in the dark.8
  19. 1822The first Stratford Point lighthouse is built.9
  20. 1844Oyster planting begins in Stratford.22
  21. 1850The Stratford Knockings begin in the house of Dr. Phelps and draw crowds by every train.5
  22. 1882O.H. Bailey publishes his bird's-eye view of Stratford.3
  23. 1906The present railroad bridge to Milford is finished, the fourth on the site.23
  24. 1939Igor Sikorsky lifts his VS-300 helicopter about three feet off the ground outside his Stratford plant.4
  25. 1955The American Shakespeare Theatre opens on the Housatonic.1

Places to see

The numbers match the landmark guide printed on the 2026 map.

  • 3Judson HouseAcademy Hill. Built 1723 on a 1638 foundation.Visit their website
  • 6Short Beach ParkMouth of the Housatonic. Beach, ball fields and a skate park.
  • 12Sikorsky Memorial AirportLordship. Bridgeport's airport, renamed for Sikorsky in 1972.
  • 16Sterling House Community CenterStratford Center. Romanesque mansion of 1886.Visit their website
  • 22Stratford StationStratford Center. On the New Haven Line.
  • 23Sikorsky AircraftNorth on Main Street. Where the VS-300 first flew.
  • 27Boothe Memorial ParkPutney. Twenty odd buildings and a toll booth.
  • 29Stratford Point LighthouseStratford Point. Cast-iron tower of 1881.
  • 33Housatonic River Railroad BridgeThe Milford line. Rolling lift bridge finished in 1906.
  • 34Great Meadows Unit, McKinney National Wildlife RefugeLordship. A stopover for migrating birds.Visit their website

On the National Register

All 12 places in Stratford on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.2

  • Stratford Center Historic District

    Listed 1983 · Roughly bounded by East Broadway, Ferry Boulevard, the Housatonic River, the Connecticut Turnpike, Birdseye and Main Streets

    220 acres and 257 contributing buildings around Academy Hill Green, where the settlers had a fort in the 1600s. It takes in Christ Episcopal Church of 1723, built for the first Episcopal parish in Connecticut, and the old Episcopal burying ground where William Samuel Johnson lies.24

  • Capt. David Judson House

    Built 1723 · Listed 1973 · 967 Academy Hill

    David Judson built it on the stone foundation of his great-grandfather William's house of 1638, keeping the old chimney, and nine generations of Judsons lived here until 1888. Its broken scroll pediment doorway is called one of the finest in Connecticut, and the Stratford Historical Society runs it as a museum.15

    Visit their website

  • Nathaniel Curtis House

    Built about 1735 · Listed 1982 · 600 Housatonic Avenue

    One of the town's few surviving buildings of the 1700s, a classic saltbox that stood on Elm Street until 1973. That year a Curtis descendant saved it from demolition and moved it by barge to the bank of the Housatonic.25

  • Ephraim Wheeler House

    Built about 1743 · Listed 1992 · 470 Whippoorwill Lane

    Probably built the year Ephraim Wheeler married, it has twin chimneys and corner fireplaces, unusual in town even decades later. The Wheelers farmed the land around it and ran a grist mill.26

  • Sterling Homestead

    Built about 1790 · Listed 1976 · 2225 Main Street

    Probably built for Abijah McEwen, with a Palladian window under a front gable. It's best known for John W. Sterling, a landowner and ship's captain in the China trade, who bought it in the mid-1800s.27

  • Boothe Homestead (Boothe Memorial Park and Museum)

    Built about 1840 · Listed 1985 · 5774 Main Street

    It's said to be The Oldest Homestead in America, since it sits on the foundations of a house of 1663. Around 1914 the brothers David and Stephen Boothe began filling the grounds with some twenty unusual buildings, and the town has owned the park since 1949.28

  • Nathan B. Booth House

    Built about 1843 · Listed 1992 · 6080 Main Street

    Built for a prosperous Putney farmer who probably sold produce in Bridgeport and harvested oysters from a marshy island he owned in the river. It's the area's only known gable-front house of its period.29

  • Isaac Lewis House

    Built about 1858 · Listed 1991 · 50 Paradise Green Place

    A fine Italianate house with a lantern above its hip roof, built by Isaac Lewis, who made his fortune doing construction work for John Jacob Astor III and other wealthy New Yorkers.30

  • Stratford Shoal Lighthouse

    Built 1877 · Listed 1990 · Middleground Shoal, Long Island Sound

    Built on a small man-made island where two low islands once stood, about halfway across the Sound, it replaced a lightship that kept dragging off its station. It's an example of the masonry lighthouses built in open water before the sparkplug design.31

  • Stratford Point Lighthouse

    Built 1881 · Listed 1990 · Stratford Point at the mouth of the Housatonic River

    The first light here was built in 1822. The present cast-iron tower of 1881 was one of the first prefabricated cylindrical lighthouses in the country, and it still guides ships.9

  • Housatonic River Railroad Bridge

    Built 1906 · Listed 1987 · Railroad right-of-way at the Housatonic River (shared with Milford)

    The fourth railroad bridge on this site, a Scherzer rolling lift bridge that finished four-tracking the New Haven main line. The first, built in 1848, was the longest covered bridge ever built in Connecticut.23

  • Washington Bridge

    Built 1921 · Listed 2004 · U.S. Route 1 at the Housatonic River (shared with Milford)

    Carries the Boston Post Road to Milford on five 100-foot arches and is the longest drawbridge on the road. At $1.5 million it was the state highway department's largest and most expensive project up to that time.32

In their words

“It is a beautiful place, and from the water has an appearance not inferior to that of Canterbury.”

Samuel Peters, 1781, quoted in A history of the old town of Stratford, 188620

“The people are said to be the most polite of any in the colony”

Samuel Peters, 1781, quoted in A history of the old town of Stratford, 188620

“whither thou goest we will go ; thy people shall be our people, and thy God our God.”

Connecticut historical collections, 1837, on the followers of Rev. Adam Blakeman33

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Stratford, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. National Register of Historic Places listings in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  3. Historic map of Stratford, Connecticut from 1882, restored by KNOWOL
  4. Map of Stratford, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  5. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on the Stratford Knockings, Internet Archive
  6. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on Stratford Point, Internet Archive
  7. A historical collection from official records of the part sustained by Connecticut during the war of the revolution (1842), letter of John Brooks, Internet Archive
  8. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on an incident of the War of 1812, Internet Archive
  9. Stratford Point Light, Wikipedia
  10. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on the lighthouse keeper's cow, Internet Archive
  11. Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, Wikipedia
  12. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on early Stratford, Internet Archive
  13. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on the second church of Stratford, Internet Archive
  14. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on the ferry, Internet Archive
  15. Captain David Judson House, Wikipedia
  16. The Connecticut magazine (1904), on Christ Church in the Revolution, Internet Archive
  17. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on Col. Frasier's regiment, Internet Archive
  18. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on oysters, Internet Archive
  19. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), on Stratford, New Hampshire, Internet Archive
  20. A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), quoting Samuel Peters, Internet Archive
  21. History of ancient Woodbury, Connecticut (1854), on the Stratford church records, Internet Archive
  22. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on oyster planting, Internet Archive
  23. Housatonic River Railroad Bridge, Wikipedia
  24. Stratford Center Historic District, Wikipedia
  25. Nathaniel Curtis House, Wikipedia
  26. Ephraim Wheeler House, Wikipedia
  27. Sterling Homestead, Wikipedia
  28. Boothe Memorial Park and Museum, Wikipedia
  29. Nathan B. Booth House, Wikipedia
  30. Isaac Lewis House (Stratford, Connecticut), Wikipedia
  31. Stratford Shoal Light, Wikipedia
  32. Washington Bridge (Connecticut), Wikipedia
  33. Connecticut historical collections (1837), on Stratford, Internet Archive