A shore town founded by Roger Ludlowe in 1639 on the land called Unquowa, the old county seat the British burned in 1779, with the harbor village of Southport, the dogwoods and church spire of Greenfield Hill, and five miles of Long Island Sound shore.

Fairfield County · Record checked October 8, 2026

61,512Population2020 census1
1639FoundedRoger Ludlowe buys the land called Unquowa1
1779The burningmore than 200 buildings burned by British troops2
1666County seatuntil the courts moved to Bridgeport in 18533
13National Registerplaces, all still standing4

Fairfield on the map

Click the map to look closer.

Map of Fairfield, Connecticut in 2026, with the town green, Southport, Greenfield Hill, the beaches and 34 numbered landmarks

2026

Fairfield today

By KNOWOL

Shaded hills from Greenfield Hill down past Little Danbury to the beaches, every street from the Post Road to Fairfield Beach Road, Southport, Fairfield Center and Lake Mohegan, and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Historic Landmark and National Register sites marked.2

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Fairfield

Mills on the tide

Long before Fairfield was a suburb, its creeks and tide mills fed armies. In 1750 the town gave Peter Penfield leave to build a grist mill on Ash Creek near the mouth of the Unquowa River. During the Revolution the Penfield mills were guarded night and day, because James Penfield was baking several barrels of flour a day for the army. By 1819 the town had nine grain mills, four of them on tide water, grinding wheat shipped in from other states. Mill River, today's Southport, ran the biggest trade in town, sending coasting vessels to New York and the southern ports, and it was called the wealthiest village in Fairfield. During the Civil War the farms around it grew the Southport Globe onion, which sold for ten dollars a barrel.56789

The night Fairfield burned

Fairfield backed independence from the start, and the British meant to punish it. On July 7, 1779, about 2,000 troops under General Tryon came ashore at Fairfield Beach. From the spire of Trinity Church, ten-year-old Samuel Rowland watched them march up Beach Lane until a neighbor told him to run. That evening and the next morning the soldiers burned the meetinghouse, the jail and more than two hundred buildings in all. A 1909 history said the buildings that escaped could be counted on two hands. Ten years later President Washington rode through and wrote that the chimneys of burnt houses were still standing. Samuel Rowland grew up to serve as town clerk for more than forty years.11011212

The view from Greenfield Hill

Greenfield Hill became its own parish in 1725, and in 1783 Timothy Dwight came as its minister. He opened an academy where young men and women studied the classics, and in 1794 he published a long poem named for the village. A gazetteer of 1819 said no other spot in Connecticut gave so wide a view. Ten other churches could be seen from the belfry, and at times nearly a hundred sails were moving on the Sound. The custom house for the Fairfield district was kept up here. A 1909 guide says that during the Revolution Major Benjamin Tallmadge, one of Washington's secret agents, often watched British ships from the meeting house spire. The Bronson Windmill, built in 1893 and 1894, still stands nearby.13141516171819

Through the years

21 moments from 1639 to today.

  1. 1639Roger Ludlowe buys the land called Unquowa and starts the settlement.1
  2. 1648The first mill begins grinding, with Henry Jackson as miller.13
  3. 1666Fairfield County is created, with Fairfield village as its county seat.3
  4. 1702Fairfield is made a port of entry.13
  5. 1725Trinity Church opens on Mill Plain, the second Episcopal church built in the colony.20
  6. 1750Peter Penfield is allowed to build a grist mill on Ash Creek near the mouth of the Unquowa River.5
  7. 1775John Hancock marries Dorothy Quincy at Thaddeus Burr's house.13
  8. 1779About 2,000 British troops land at Fairfield Beach on July 7 and burn the town.1
  9. 1783Timothy Dwight becomes minister at Greenfield Hill and opens his academy.14
  10. 1789President Washington passes through and notes the chimneys of burnt houses still standing.1
  11. 1794The new town hall is built on the Green.21
  12. 1815Peace with Britain is celebrated on the Green with an ox roast and a ball at the Knapp tavern.22
  13. 1819The town has nine grain mills, and Mill River is called its wealthiest village.7
  14. 1831Southport is chartered as a borough.23
  15. 1840Joseph Collins Wells designs the Gothic Revival house of Jonathan Sturges on Mill Plain.24
  16. 1853The county courts move to Bridgeport.3
  17. 1860sThe Southport Globe onion sells for ten dollars a barrel during the Civil War.9
  18. 1894The Pequot Library opens in Southport.25
  19. 1898The Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut is founded at Fairfield.26
  20. 1914Mabel Osgood Wright founds the Birdcraft Sanctuary.27
  21. 1945Two men on a barge stuck on Penfield Reef are saved in the first civilian helicopter hoist rescue.1

Places to see

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

  • 1Penfield BeachThe shore. Town beach south of the center.
  • 3Burr HomesteadOld Post Road. Rebuilt where Hancock married Dorothy Quincy.
  • 5Fairfield Town HallFairfield Center. Built in 1794 after the burning.
  • 6Bronson WindmillGreenfield Hill. The town's last windmill, about 80 feet.
  • 10Jonathan Sturges HouseMill Plain Road. Gothic Revival landmark of 1840.
  • 17Connecticut Audubon Birdcraft MuseumUnquowa Road. Oldest private songbird sanctuary in America.Visit their website
  • 18Pequot LibrarySouthport. Pink granite library opened in 1894.Visit their website
  • 24Fairfield Village GreenFairfield Center. The heart of the 1639 town.
  • 29Southport Historic DistrictSouthport. Captains' and merchants' houses by the harbor.
  • 33Greenfield Hill Congregational ChurchGreenfield Hill. Timothy Dwight's church on the green.Visit their website

On the National Register

All 13 places in Fairfield on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.4

  • John Osborne House

    Built 1734 · Listed 1987 · 909 Kings Highway West

    An early colonial house whose framing doesn't follow the usual patterns; tax records give 1734, though it may be as old as 1673. It stands near the Pequot Swamp, where the last battle of the Pequot War was fought in 1637.28

  • David Ogden House

    Built 1750 · Listed 1979 · 1520 Bronson Road

    A saltbox farmhouse built about the time David Ogden married Jane Sturges, home to the Ogden family for 125 years. It escaped the 1779 burning and is now a museum of the Fairfield Museum and History Center.29

    Visit their website

  • Greenfield Hill Historic District

    Listed 1971 · Around the Greenfield Hill green, Bronson Road and Meeting House Lane

    The village around the triangular green, an intellectual center after Timothy Dwight became minister in 1783 and opened an academy for young men and women. It holds 38 principal houses and buildings from the 1700s and 1800s.14

  • Fairfield Historic District

    Listed 1971 · Old Post Road from the Post Road to Turney Road

    The old town center laid out in Four Squares by the founders, with about 75 historic buildings on 35 acres, including houses that survived the 1779 burning and the town hall of 1794.21

  • Southport Historic District

    Listed 1971 · Between Southport Harbor, the railroad, Old South Road and Rose Hill Road

    The center of Fairfield's trade and shipping after the Revolution, with more than 150 contributing buildings, mostly Greek Revival and Victorian homes of merchants, bankers and captains. The Meeker House is the only building known to have survived the 1779 burning of Southport.30

  • Jonathan Sturges House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1840 · Listed 1984 · 449 Mill Plain Road

    The first known commission of architect Joseph Collins Wells, and one of the oldest and best documented architect-designed Gothic Revival houses in the country. It has more than 30 rooms and 11 staircases and is still owned by the Sturges family.24

  • Pine Creek Park Bridge

    Built 1872 · Listed 1992 · North of Old Dam Road, over Pine Creek

    A rare early iron Pratt pony truss bridge made by the Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh. It was moved here in 1979 from its first spot on Mill Hill Road.31

  • Fairfield Railroad Stations

    Built 1882 · Listed 1989 · Unquowa Road at the Fairfield station

    The brick eastbound station of 1882 replaced one lost to fire and is typical of the sturdier brick stations of the 1880s. The wooden westbound station is a good example of the New Haven Railroad's stations of the 1890s.32

  • Southport Railroad Stations

    Listed 1989 · 96 Station Street and 100 Center Street

    Two late 1800s station buildings at the stop that opened in 1884, a wooden saltbox westbound station and a brick eastbound one. The westbound station was gutted by fire in 2008 and restored and reopened in 2009.33

  • Bronson Windmill

    Built 1893 to 1894 · Listed 1971 · 3015 Bronson Road

    An octagonal mill about 80 feet tall, built for Frederic Bronson to pump water into an underground cistern. It's the only survivor of the windmills that once dotted the town.19

  • Greenfield Hill Grange No. 133

    Built 1897 · Listed 2008 · 1873 Hillside Road

    A grange hall built when northern Fairfield was farm country known for flax, one of the few high quality halls built for a grange in the state. Its pressed tin ceilings are thought to be among the earliest of their kind.34

  • Restmore

    Built 1911 to 1912 · Listed 2009 · 375 Warner Hill Road

    An 11-room steel and stucco summer house built by Ira DeVer Warner of the Warner Brothers Corset Company, who ran a dairy farm on the rest of his 200 acres.35

  • Birdcraft Sanctuary

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1914 · Listed 1982 · 314 Unquowa Road

    Founded by Mabel Osgood Wright in 1914, the oldest private songbird sanctuary in the United States, where more than 120 kinds of birds have been seen. Its founding marked the revival of the bird conservation movement.27

    Visit their website

In their words

“For more than two hundred years Fairfield was the queen of the county”

History of Fairfield County, Connecticut, 188136

“It is presumed that no other spot in Connecticut affords a prospect so extensive and delightful”

A gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode-Island, 1819, on the view from Greenfield Hill16

“Mill River, Southport, and Fairfield will always seem pleasant and homelike.”

George Dimon, writing from Ohio for the 1879 centennial of the burning37

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Fairfield, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. Map of Fairfield, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  3. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on the county seat, Internet Archive
  4. National Register of Historic Places listings in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  5. The history of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, from 1700 to 1800, Elizabeth H. Schenck (1905), on Penfield's mill, Internet Archive
  6. The history of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, from 1700 to 1800, Elizabeth H. Schenck (1905), on the Penfield mills in 1779, Internet Archive
  7. A gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode-Island (1819), on Fairfield's mills, Internet Archive
  8. A gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode-Island (1819), on Mill River, Internet Archive
  9. History of Connecticut in monographic form (1925), on the Southport Globe onion, Internet Archive
  10. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on Samuel Rowland, Internet Archive
  11. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on the meetinghouse and jail, Internet Archive
  12. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on historic sites, Internet Archive
  13. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), summary of dates, Internet Archive
  14. Greenfield Hill Historic District, Wikipedia
  15. In olde Connecticut, Charles Burr Todd (1906), on Greenfield Hill, Internet Archive
  16. A gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode-Island (1819), on Greenfield Hill, Internet Archive
  17. A gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode-Island (1819), on the custom house, Internet Archive
  18. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on Greenfield Hill, Internet Archive
  19. Bronson Windmill, Wikipedia
  20. Annals of an old parish: historical sketches of Trinity Church, Southport, Connecticut (1898), Internet Archive
  21. Fairfield Historic District (Fairfield, Connecticut), Wikipedia
  22. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on the peace celebration of 1815, Internet Archive
  23. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on the Borough of Southport, Internet Archive
  24. Jonathan Sturges House, Wikipedia
  25. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on the Pequot Library, Internet Archive
  26. Fairfield, ancient and modern, Frank Samuel Child (1909), on the Audubon Society, Internet Archive
  27. Connecticut Audubon Society Birdcraft Museum and Sanctuary, Wikipedia
  28. John Osborne House, Wikipedia
  29. David Ogden House, Wikipedia
  30. Southport Historic District (Fairfield, Connecticut), Wikipedia
  31. Pine Creek Park Bridge, Wikipedia
  32. Fairfield station (Metro-North), Wikipedia
  33. Southport station (Metro-North), Wikipedia
  34. Greenfield Hill Grange No. 133, Wikipedia
  35. Restmore, Wikipedia
  36. History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881), on Fairfield, Internet Archive
  37. Centennial commemoration of the burning of Fairfield, Connecticut (1879), letter of George Dimon, Internet Archive