Connecticut Coastal Paddling

Fairfield County

Fairfield

Southport Harbor

Site Location: Harbor Road, Fairfield

Basic Information:

Type: Bay

Water Type: Saltwater

Season:

Site Contact Information:

Coordinates:

Longitude 73.277ºW   Latitude 41.134ºN

Location Map:

USGS Quadrangle: Westport

Navigational Charts:

Use ChartKit Region 3, page 27; Maptech Waterproof Charts 1 and 16; and Maptech electronic and NOAA paper charts 12369 (1:20,000), 12364 (1:40,000), and 12363 (1:80,000). Use tide tables for Bridgeport. High tide at the Black Rock Harbor entrance is 4 minutes earlier; low tide is 3 minutes earlier. Use height of tide at Bridgeport for height of tide at Black Rock Harbor entrance. Mean tidal range is 6.9 feet.

Driving Directions:

Directions Map: Google Map

Regulations:

Toilets:

Parking:

Parking Spaces:

Parking Fees:

Boat Launch Information:

Sasco Beach

Southport Boatyard

ADA Access:

Site Description:

Environment:

Additional Info:

Places To Eat:

Places To Stay:

  Campgrounds:

Hotels / Motels:

  Inns:

Site History:

The town of Southport is a cameo of the "good life" in Fairfield County. In fact, if all the harbors in Connecticut were milk, Southport would be the cream-it's very rich, but there's not much of it. The harbor is quiet and beautiful, and you might feel as though you're in the middle of a picture postcard. Houses nestle in the woods to the west, while the hills and fairways of Fairfield Country Club roll a wide, green carpet to the east.

This ground of gracious living was also the site of the Great Swamp Battle of 1637. Here, the last of the Pequot Indians, having escaped the massacre at Mystic, were run down and killed in a Southport swamp by the English settlers of eastern Connecticut.

In the Revolutionary days of 1779, General Tryon was the nominal British Military Governor of New York. He and his Hessian troops burned 85 public buildings and private homes in the town of Fairfield. The rebuilt town now enjoys several beautiful historic districts, including the west side of Southport Harbor. It is ironic that a town that suffered so heavily during the Revolution sits close to Black Rock Harbor, the home port of a full-scale working replica of the British warship H.M.S. Rose.

The subsequent history of the town is far from bloody. The settlers were farmers, and Southport was mostly onion fields. The federal government began improving to the harbor in 1831 so that more boats could reach Southport (and more people could enjoy Southport's onions). Teams of oxen pulled crude scoop buckets to dredge the Mill River, and schlepped heavy, wooden sleds loaded with granite boulders across the mud flats to build the breakwater at the entrance of Southport Harbor.

All of that hard, manual labor has been much appreciated by the many recreational boaters, who have since taken advantage of the small but snug harbor of Southport and turned it into a charming port, smooth and rich like cream.