Main Street, Clinton

I would guess that to most people in most parts of Connecticut, the town of Clinton is synonymous with Clinton Crossing, the outlet center on Route 81. (And if the recorded welcome messages in multiple languages that you hear as you walk along the center's "sidewalks" are anything to go by, that probably holds true far beyond Connecticut as well.)

I will admit to spending an embarrassing amount of time at Clinton Crossing, but if you think - as I once did, years ago - that its stores are the only reason to visit this shoreline town, you are mistaken.

Take a walk down Clinton's Main Street (East and West Main meet above the Indian River, which winds its way past the town's beach and into Long Island Sound.) You'll see the Elisha White House, a.k.a. Old Brick, built in 1750 and now used by the Clinton Historical Society. Witch hazel, used "by early settlers for medicinal purposes" and "by Unilever/Ponds, a corporation that dominated manufacturing in Clinton for decades," grows in the garden in the back. 

You'll also pass all the usual small-town staples: coffee house, ice cream parlor, appliance store, post office, pizza place.

One thing I always notice every time I'm in Clinton is how much history and eccentricity remains. Some other towns might have demolished this little house and replaced it with a drab brick rectangle of an office building by now, but here it still stands proudly.

.The 1791 Adam Stanton House was built "by a wealthy, striving merchant-businessman."

The store sold "a wide array of dry goods from baskets to salt to tools and tea."

The Academy was founded in 1801 as, essentially, a prep school.

Higher education was big around here long before that, though; the Reverend Abraham Pierson, who was minister of the Congregational Church in Clinton beginning in 1694 (back when Clinton was still part of Killingworth) attended Harvard and helped found the school which would later become Yale.

(Speaking of New Haven - did I mention pizza?)

The current Congregational Church building, almost obscured by summer trees and standing high up on a hill, was built in 1837.

Everywhere you look in the center of Clinton, you'll spot some little plaque or monument. On a recent walk through town I noticed for the first time a little waterside gazebo at Clinton Landing, behind the Town Hall, and the site of the goldsmith shop of Abel Buell. 

Though I love the shoreline year round, summer is the time when this region comes alive. Merchandise is moved out of stores and onto sidewalks, people emerge from indoors to be near the water, and flowers bloom everywhere.

Summer is also when the flags appear. Suddenly, one day, they are everywhere (large, small, draped over doorways, hanging from utility poles on the main roads, stuck into flower pots) and weird, obstinate little Connecticut transforms into classic, jubilant America.

The List

Someone not from Connecticut asked me recently if I had a list of places to blog about, believing (I think) that without a list I'd quickly run out. Anyone who knows Connecticut knows that of course you can't run out - the real problem is the opposite. I said that though I didn't always have a list - at first I just wrote about wherever or whatever I happened to find, whenever I happened to find it - I have one now. It has outgrown the small notebook in which it originally lived and now takes up multiple pages of a larger notebook. Alarmingly, it just keeps expanding.

On the list are towns and cities and parks and trails and beaches and buildings and monuments and oddities and things that just crack me up, like this antique store in Clinton. What cracks me up about it is not the building above, but the sign:

So funny. But so depressing. But so funny.

Anyway. Also on the list are questions, of the sort that bounce around my addled brain and will probably never get into the blog, like whether Harpers Ferry Road in Waterbury has anything to do with John Brown, and how many syllables are in Leete.

I've been adding more winter ideas to the list recently, since in past winters I let weeks and months go by without blogging while cold and snow kept me indoors. This winter, there will be more about books and shopping and history and other inside, inclement-weather-friendly topics.

That's assuming there is a winter, that this wasn't the extent of it. Because it is Connecticut, so you never know.

I'll be back on Monday. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Bookstore-ish

One thing I'm slowly discovering is that Connecticut is full of surprises interesting bookstores. Books in barns, books in mills, books in all sorts of unusual buildings that don't look like typical bookstores. I have yet to check out the inside of this one in Clinton. I've seen some stuff online that might indicate it's no longer open, but it looked open when I snapped this picture. It has a flag out, and the proper seasonal decorations, which are hopeful signs. So it's on my ever-growing list of bookstores to visit. (And I do NOT need more books. Well, no, I always need more books. But my apartment and especially my back, which will have to support me as I carry all the books out again whenever I finally move, do not need any more books.)

[Update: Visited. Open. Very cute. Totally recommend. It's called Bookloft.]

Yes, CT Has Wine. Yes, It's Actually Good. Really.

One day in June, I went to these seven vineyards, drank far too much wine, and ate my weight in oyster crackers. All for this overview of the Southeastern section of the Connecticut Wine Trail.

Little Red Houses

This house (or shed?) was built in 1801. I know because there's a small plaque by the door that says so. What it is, or was, or whether it always stood in the middle of what is now essentially a traffic island in Clinton, I don't know either. It's terribly cute - it looks slightly less cute in this picture because I took it leaning out of my car window from a funny angle, there being nowhere to park nearby. So it appears larger here than it does when you approach it from the front and involuntarily say, "Oooh, cuuute!" There are a lot of buildings like this - historic, random, adorable, difficult to observe from anywhere other than a passing car - in Connecticut, and so far I haven't tired of seeing them. When I do, I guess that will mean it's time to move again...

Update: This is not a house or a shed, but a former schoolhouse. See more about it here.