Connecticut Lighthouses:
New Haven and Old Saybrook Regions
New Haven, Old Saybrook, and Guilford
Regional Blog Stories | ||
Connecticut’s rocky shoreline and its many treacherous ledges and islands in Fisher’s Island Sound and Long Island Sound, constantly kept mariners on the alert, claiming the lives of many during New England’s fierce storms.
Lighthouses were built here to guide shipping traffic from the fishing and whaling industries into the busy commercial port of New Haven, and around a dangerous rock formation about a mile offshore entering New Haven Harbor called Southwest Ledge. They were also built to guide ships coming through Long Island Sound where the Connecticut River empties into the sound at Old Saybrook often shrouded in fog, and around dangerous Faulkner’s Island.
Connecticut Lighthouses
in the New Haven Region
You Can Drive Or Hike To
Lighthouses mentioned below that you can drive to may also be viewed from various boat tours.
Click any lighthouse image or link below to find out information about each lighthouse, including historical stories, directions, tours, photos, and nearby attractions.
Connecticut Lighthouses in the
New Haven and Old Saybrook Regions
Best Viewed by Boat
Click any lighthouse image or link below to find out information about each lighthouse, including historical stories, directions, tours, photos, and nearby attractions.
| |
|
Note: Of Connecticut's twenty lighthouses, fifteen lighthouses are best viewed closely by boat, leaving only five lighthouses that are easily accessible to visit for close views by land.
Places to Visit:
Between New Haven and Old Saybrook
Many attractions in New Haven have to do with connections to Yale University, helping New Haven to become the cultural center it is today. There are all kinds of performances and exhibits in the arts and theater, and many forms of music. You’ll also find the Yale Bowl for college football. There are museums of natural history and New Haven history, architecture from the nineteenth century, and many specialty shops. In New Haven, the Peabody Museum of Natural History offers thousands of exhibits about our earth from dinosaur fossils to saber-toothed tigers.
|
For those of us who are young or young at heart, and enjoy PEZ candy from a variety of special unique and personal dispensers, visit the PEZ Visitor Center, just outside of West Haven. |
If you go there during business hours you may be able to view the factory to learn how this candy has been made for over 80 years.
Heading eastward along interstate Route I-95, or Route 1, most attractions are easily accessed from either of these routes. Five Mile Point lighthouse guards the entrance to New Haven, five miles away.
Lighthouse Point Park, where you can walk up to Five Mile Point Light, and get a distant view of Southwest Ledge Light, is one of the many parks New Haven has to offer.
| At Lighthouse Point Park you view File Mile Point light out on the end of a stone jetty, or explore the antique carousel. |  |
For family fun in Middlebury, visit the Quassy Amusement Park.
Guilford offers five differing museums for visitors to explore while they're in town.
| One of them, the Henry Whitfield State Museum, provides visitors a glimpse into Connecticut's oldest historic stone house. |
Connecticut's Oldest House |
For those who enjoy hiking, the WestWoods and Timberlands Trails System offers nearly 40 miles of trails through caves, waterfalls, marshland, and naturally carved rock formations.
Old Saybrook is one of the oldest towns in Connecticut. It offers plenty of community events and historical New England 19th century Victorian architecture. There are more 18th century Colonial and 19th century Federal buildings than you will find in most New England towns. To get around town, you can take the Old Saybrook trolley. Fort Saybrook Monument Park is the first military fortification in Connecticut.
Both Saybrook Breakwater light and Lynde Point light, although best viewed by boat, can also be viewed from a rather short distance on land.
 |
Saybrook Breakwater lighthouse can be seen from the dock at Saybrook Point. |
If you are descreet, and ask permission, you may find closer views outside the golf course nearby.
| You can find nice views of Lynde Point Light a few hundred yards away along the shore. |  |
Boat Tours: Connecticut's New Haven
and Old Saybrook Regions
Boat cruises mentioned below offer many types of cruises. While some may offer specific lighthouse cruises, some will pass by specific lighthouses as part of charters, narrated wildlife and historic tours, fishing tours, and other types of excursions.
Connecticut River Museum
In addition to exploring the museum, they provide lots of wildlife and eco tours on the RiverQuest, a 64-foot eco-tour boat. There are unique public day sails on a special recreation of an Adriaen Block vessel of 1614, the Onrust. They also offer a peaceful lighthouse cruise out of the mouth of the Connecticut River
67 Main Street Essex, CT 06426
Phone: (860) 767-8269
Email: crm@ctrivermuseum.org
Lighthouses: Lynde Point, Old Saybrook Breakwater
Faulkner’s Light Brigade
In the early fall, there is an annual open house for the public to explore the grounds and lighthouse.
47 Driveway
Guilford, CT 06437
(203) 453-8400
Lighthouse: Faulkner's Island Light
Books to Explore
Lighthouses and Coastal Attractions of Southern New England: Take a look inside! |
|
Available in paperback, hardcover, and as an eBook for all devices.
Enjoy a 10% discount on the hardcover version. Printed and distributed by IngramSpark. |
The Rise and Demise of the Largest Sailing Ships: In the early 1900s, New England shipbuilders constructed the world’s largest sailing ships amid social and political reforms. These giants of sail were the ten original six-masted coal schooners and one colossal seven-masted vessel, built to carry massive quantities of coal and building supplies, and measured longer than a football field! This book, balanced with plenty of color and vintage images, showcases the historical accounts that followed these mighty ships. These true stories include competitions, accidents, battling destructive storms, acts of heroism, and their final voyages. |
This image-rich book contains over 50 stories of famous shipwrecks and rescues around New England lighthouses, and also tales of hauntings that occurred. You'll find stories of the legacy and life of Keeper Oliver Brooks, and about his most famous rescues at Faulkner's Island Light. |
You'll find this book and my lighthouse tourism books from the publisher Schiffer Books, or in many fine bookstores like Barnes and Noble.