The one and only Southbury, set off from Woodbury in 1787, a Pomperaug valley town of old Main Street farms, the mill village of South Britain, the tradesmen of Southford and a Russian colony on the hill.

New Haven County · Record checked October 12, 2026

19,879Population2020 census1
1787Became a townfrom the Southbury and South Britain parishes of Woodbury2
1967Heritage Villageopened on 1,000 acres1
1,500 feetThe gas wellbored for oil or gas by the Pomperaug, 1888 to 18903
13National Registerplaces, all still standing4

Southbury on the map

Click the map to look closer.

Map of Southbury, Connecticut in 2026, with Main Street North, South Britain, Southford, Lake Zoar and 34 numbered landmarks

2026

Southbury today

By KNOWOL

Shaded hills from the Pomperaug valley out to Southford and down to Lake Zoar, every street and the town line, with Southbury, South Britain and Southford printed by name and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Register sites marked.5

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Southbury

How Southford got its name

The early settlers called the land along the Eight Mile Brook Out East. By the end of the 1700s it had filled with tradesmen, and an 1892 county history says almost everyone there followed some trade. Shoemakers went from house to house to do their work, which they called whipping the cat. A rough woodworker who carried his jack plane from job to job was a slapjack, and for years the whole neighborhood was called Slapjack. Once Union Church went up it was Union Village. Then, when the post office came about 1840, John Peck took the first syllable of Southbury and the last of Oxford and made Southford. Harvey Bronson made clock cord there for the clockmakers of Bristol and Waterbury, and a paper mill ran on the brook from 1853.678

The white oak and Pork Hollow

In the spring of 1673 a few settlers came down into the Pomperaug valley and camped under a huge white oak, about half a mile west of today's Main Street. The tree gave its name to White Oak, the north end of town, and it stood for more than another century. When it finally fell on August 19, 1808, Shadrach Osborn, an old and respected townsman, took pieces from the trunk and wrote a couplet on one. Osborn had served in the Revolution. After the British took Danbury, he had several hundred barrels of pork stored for safety in a ravine southeast of the center, under guard of Captain Parsons and 50 men from Derby, and the ravine became Pork Hollow. Some of Lafayette's troops camped at White Oak on their march.9101112

The mill village on the Pomperaug

South Britain grew up where the Pomperaug runs between high ledges of rock. The Hinmans and Knowleses ran saw and grist mills there before the Revolution. After 1814 Burton Canfield built a three-story mill that made carpet yarn for the weavers of New Haven, along with a tannery and shoe and comb shops. In 1836 John Warner Barber counted more than 20 houses, two churches, three stores, a carpet factory and two or three hat shops, and wrote that the village, seen from the south, had a romantic look. In 1853 a company spent $17,000 on a forty-acre reservoir for more water power, but it was never used. The village still has its churches of 1825 and 1832, and the town hall of 1873.131415

Through the years

24 moments from 1673 to today.

  1. 1673The first settlers make their homes at White Oak, in the Pomperaug valley.9
  2. 1675The course of Main Street is laid out along the old Pomperaug trail.12
  3. 1679Kettletown is bought again in corn and goods; the first price had been a brass kettle.16
  4. 1733Southbury's church is gathered with Rev. John Graham as its first minister, and its meetinghouse goes up.117
  5. 1766South Britain is set off as its own parish, west of the hills along the Pomperaug.2
  6. 1777After the British raid on Danbury, several hundred barrels of pork are hidden in what becomes Pork Hollow.1118
  7. 1778George Washington has a bridge built across the Housatonic at Hinman's ferry.19
  8. 1787Southbury becomes a town, and the first town meeting is held on June 30.2
  9. 1803About six people form the town's first Methodist society on George's Hill.20
  10. 1807Southbury moves from Litchfield County to New Haven County.1
  11. 1808The great white oak that named White Oak falls on August 19.10
  12. 1825The South Britain Congregational Church is built.15
  13. 1830About this year a coal shaft is sunk 100 feet beside the Pomperaug, then abandoned.3
  14. 1835About this year M. S. Mitchell builds the Mitchell Mansion House on Main Street.12
  15. 1853A paper mill starts at Southford, and the South Britain Water Power Company builds a reservoir it never uses.813
  16. 1860Samuel G. Goodrich, the author Peter Parley, dies, and the stage driver brings the news up the street.21
  17. 1873South Britain gets its Italianate town hall, the seat of town government until 1964.15
  18. 1881The railroad opens through town, with stations at Pomperaug Valley and Southford.22
  19. 1888The Southbury Company begins boring for oil or gas and goes down 1,500 feet.3
  20. 1920sCount Ilya Tolstoy and George Grebenstchikoff start the Russian Village, Churaevka.1
  21. 1937Residents pass a zoning rule that stops the German American Bund's planned camp.1
  22. 1940The brick campus of the Southbury Training School is finished.5
  23. 1963Interstate 84 is open through Southbury.1
  24. 1967Heritage Village opens on 1,000 acres.1

Places to see

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

  • 2Bullet Hill SchoolMain Street North. Brick schoolhouse of the late 1700s.Visit their website
  • 4Kettletown State ParkLake Zoar. Camping and trails, shared with Oxford.Visit their website
  • 6Larkin State Park TrailSouthford. Riding trail on an old railroad.Visit their website
  • 7Old Town Hall MuseumSouth Britain. The village's town hall of 1873.Visit their website
  • 9George C. Waldo State ParkLake Lillinonah. Park on the lake's eastern shore.
  • 15Bent of the River Audubon CenterSouthwest of South Britain. 700 acres kept in mild wildness.Visit their website
  • 23Aaron Bronson HouseSouthford Road. A Cape of about 1785.
  • 27Southbury Training SchoolRoute 172, northwest. Brick campus finished in 1940.
  • 31Southbury Historic District No. 1Main Street North. Two miles of the old center.
  • 34Adin Wheeler House and Theodore F. Wheeler Wheelwright ShopQuaker Farms Road. Wheelwright shop with its forge intact.

On the National Register

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

  • Southbury Historic District No. 1

    Listed 1971 · Main Street from the Woodbury town line to Old Waterbury Road

    About two miles of Main Street North, laid out in the 1600s when this was still Woodbury, with widely spaced houses of the 1700s and 1800s, old town buildings, a church and stone walls. It continues into Woodbury as that town's Historic District No. 2.23

  • Plaster House

    Built by about 1750 · Listed 1993 · 117 Plaster House Road

    A small stuccoed stone house with a gambrel roof, an extremely rare example of stone building in colonial Connecticut. It belonged for many years to the Hinman family, and family lore says the Revolutionary soldier Benjamin Hinman was born here.24

  • South Britain Historic District

    Listed 1987 · East Flat Hill, Hawkins, Library and Middle Roads, and 497 to 864 South Britain Road

    The mill village on the Pomperaug, which for a time rivaled the town center. It keeps old mill foundations, a power canal of the 1800s, the Congregational church of 1825, the Methodist church of 1832 and the Italianate town hall of 1873.15

  • Little Pootatuck Brook Archeological Site

    Listed 1990 · Address restricted

    Believed to be one of the last village sites of the Pootatuck people near the Housatonic, before those who remained joined the Schaghticoke in the 1700s. The land is now held by a local conservation land trust.25

  • Aaron Bronson House

    Built about 1785 · Listed 1993 · 846 Southford Road

    A Colonial Cape whose Federal interior survives almost whole, with paneled fireplace walls and built-in cabinets. Aaron Bronson, who owned it in the early 1800s, was a shoemaker and button maker.26

  • Sanford Road Historic District

    Built 1786 · Listed 1993 · 480 and 487 Sanford Road

    Two farmhouses facing each other: the Cape of Ephraim Stiles, built in 1786, and the house of his son-in-law Benjamin Osborne, a state legislator. Ephraim's grandfather Benjamin Stiles, one of the first lawyers in the area, bought the land about 1750.27

  • Bullet Hill School

    Built in the late 1700s · Listed 1972 · Main Street

    One of the oldest brick school buildings in Connecticut, with a square belfry on its hip roof. Classes met downstairs with a meeting room above, and it was a school until 1942, when the town kept it as a historical monument.28

    Visit their website

  • William Hurd House

    Built late 1700s, enlarged about 1820 · Listed 1993 · 327 Hulls Hill Road

    A Federal farmhouse in the Southford area with a fine entry and well-kept outbuildings, believed to be one of the oldest houses in Southbury. William Hurd built the first part, and it was sold out of the family in 1834.29

  • Reuben Curtiss House

    Built late 1700s, raised about 1840 · Listed 1993 · 1770 Bucks Hill Road

    One of Southbury's finest Greek Revival houses. About 1840 the old house was raised and a new first floor built under it, and from 1840 to 1866 another Reuben Curtiss ran a school for boys here.30

  • Adin Wheeler House and Theodore F. Wheeler Wheelwright Shop

    Built in the 1790s · Listed 1993 · 125 Quaker Farms Road

    Adin Wheeler, who owned the mill at Southford Falls, built the house, with a bell-cast porch roof rare in Connecticut. His great-grandson Theodore built the wheelwright shop, which still has its brick forge, bellows and tools.31

  • Hurley Road Historic District

    Built about 1820 and 1835 · Listed 1993 · 6 and 17 Hurley Road

    Two farmsteads on land granted to Israel Curtiss when old Woodbury was divided: a Federal house of about 1820 built for Jason Curtiss and a Greek Revival Cape of about 1835 for his cousin Japhet.32

  • Russian Village Historic District

    Built in the 1920s · Listed 1988 · Roughly Kiev Drive and Russian Village Road, between US 6 and the Pomperaug River

    Churaevka, the summer colony that Ilya Tolstoy and George Grebenstchikoff began for Russian emigres, visited by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Sikorsky. Its cottages have Russian touches on their hoods and dormers, and St. Sergius Chapel was designed by Nicholas Roerich.33

  • Southbury Training School

    Built in the 1930s · Listed 1992 · 1484 South Britain Road (shared with Roxbury)

    A state school for adults with intellectual disabilities, its brick Georgian and Colonial Revival campus finished in 1940 north of South Britain. The district reaches into Roxbury, where the school bought farm land in 1937.345

In their words

“They erected a church in the beautiful valley of Pomperaug.”

Southbury's church, greeting Stratford's at its 250th anniversary, 188917

“He considered the drive from Southbury to Woodbury one of the most beautiful in the world.”

The town and people, Woodbury, 1901, on Samuel G. Goodrich, the author Peter Parley35

“The sturdy Oak, the boast of every clime, Must bow to the relentless hand of time.”

Shadrach Osborn, written on a piece of the White Oak in 1808, from Barber's Connecticut historical collections, 183710

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Southbury, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the parishes and the new town, Internet Archive
  3. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on coal and the gas well, Internet Archive
  4. National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven County, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  5. Map of Southbury, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  6. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on Southford, Internet Archive
  7. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the Bronsons of Southford, Internet Archive
  8. The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut (1896), on the Southford paper mill, Internet Archive
  9. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the first settlers at White Oak, Internet Archive
  10. Connecticut historical collections, John Warner Barber (1837), on the White Oak, Internet Archive
  11. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on Pork Hollow and the place names of Southbury, Internet Archive
  12. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on Southbury Main Street, Internet Archive
  13. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the mills of South Britain, Internet Archive
  14. Connecticut historical collections, John Warner Barber (1836), on South Britain, Internet Archive
  15. South Britain Historic District, Wikipedia
  16. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the Kettletown purchase, Internet Archive
  17. The quarto-millennial anniversary of the Congregational Church of Stratford, Connecticut (1889), response from the church in Southbury, Internet Archive
  18. Battle of Ridgefield (Tryon's raid on Danbury, April 1777), Wikipedia
  19. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the Housatonic ferries, Internet Archive
  20. History of ancient Woodbury, Connecticut (1871), on the Methodist churches in Southbury, Internet Archive
  21. The Connecticut quarterly (1895), Peter Parley as known to his daughter, Internet Archive
  22. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on the railroad, Internet Archive
  23. Southbury Historic District No. 1, Wikipedia
  24. Plaster House, Wikipedia
  25. Little Pootatuck Brook Archeological Site, Wikipedia
  26. Aaron Bronson House, Wikipedia
  27. Sanford Road Historic District, Wikipedia
  28. Bullet Hill School, Wikipedia
  29. William Hurd House, Wikipedia
  30. Reuben Curtiss House, Wikipedia
  31. Adin Wheeler House and Theodore F. Wheeler Wheelwright Shop, Wikipedia
  32. Hurley Road Historic District, Wikipedia
  33. Russian Village Historic District, Wikipedia
  34. Southbury Training School, Wikipedia
  35. The town and people, Woodbury, Connecticut (1901), Internet Archive