Stonington Borough Historic District

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Stonington Borough Historic District is a historic district along Water and Main Streets in Stonington, New London County. It covers 170 acres and includes 387 contributing buildings. Its buildings date from about 1750 to 1978.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with significance in architecture, commerce and transportation at the national, state and local levels.

Physical character

Brick is among the district's building materials, and its architecture ranges from Federal and Greek Revival through Carpenter Gothic, Georgian Revival, Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Italianate and Second Empire. The nomination names Richard Upjohn and Stanford White as architects working in the district.

Historical context

Whaling began in Stonington in 1701, and the borough endured a naval attack in 1775. Captain Edmund Fanning circumnavigated the world aboard the brig Betsy from 1797 to 1798, and the brig Hersilla opened the borough's sealing industry in 1819. Twenty whalers left Stonington's harbor from 1840 to 1845, the same decade Portuguese sailors and fishermen began to settle in the borough, and from 1837 to 1904 Stonington served as the western terminus of the New York, Providence, and Boston Railroad. The Custom House district operated from 1842 to 1913, and John F. Trumbull's factory began making horseshoe nails in the borough in 1851.