Fairfield can be broken down into several distinct districts. The Old Post Road area was established as a Fairfield settlement by Roger Ludlow in 1639. Ludlow set aside space for public use. The Old Town Hall and Independence Hall area form the seat of the local government offices. Southport, an area of Fairfield, retains the ambience of a colonial village with narrow streets, slate slab sidewalks and rolling lawns. Southport became a bustling seaport in the 1800s and today is one of three historic districts in Fairfield. The Greenfield Hill Historic District includes the Bronson Windmill and the Greenfield Hill Post Office in the Greenfield Hill Village Center. The season's highlight is the Dogwood Festival, with miles of roadways lined with springtime dogwoods in bloom, and an old fashioned church fair.
The Fairfield Historical Society Museum and its members play a key role in retaining the city's heritage. The Museum offers a full range of activities from the Memorial Day parade to holiday tree lighting on Old Town Hall Green. It oversees the Ogden House, an exceptional example of a 1750 saltbox farmhouse with herb gardens and native wildflower walk, and the Burr Homestead. There are many well-preserved, older homes along the Old Post Road.
Public, private and parochial schools service pre-school through graduate students. The school system provides numerous special programs. Broadening the educational and cultural base of the community are three universities with graduate schools: Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University and nearby University of Bridgeport. The Bridgeport Engineering Institute is located within the Fairfield University complex.
Five miles of shoreline mark Fairfield's southern border. There are five beaches and two marinas. The Penfield Pavilion, owned by the town, contains changing rooms, cabanas, a lounge and dining room along 800 feet of sandy beach. Unique to Fairfield are the miles of houses along the beach. Once summer homes, many have been renovated to take advantage of the beach and marvelous views.
There are over 70 acres of town-owned land in the shore areas and over 450 acres of parkland throughout the town. The South Benson Boat basin is a marina with approximately 700 boats. There is also a sailboat rack at S. Benson Beach, as well as the Sandcastle playground.
The Firehouse Deli, located in the center of town, is one of the many restaurants in Fairfield's active dining scene. Opposite is the Sherman green with Gazebo, where during the summer residents enjoy outdoor evening concerts.
The history of Fairfield dates back to the fall of 1639, when Ludlow led a small group of men and a large herd of cattle to the shore of Long Island Sound. At a place known to the local Indians as Unquowa, they established a settlement that became known as Fairfield, named for the hundreds of acres of salt marsh that bordered the coast. The marsh provided a plentiful supply of feed for the livestock and abandoned Indian fields became the site of the settlers' first agricultural plots.
The founding of Fairfield was not without conflict. Roger Ludlow had first seen this area in 1637 when as one of a band of settler-soldiers, he had pursued a group of Pequot Indians to a swamp in Southport. There, the Pequots made a last stand in a brief but bloody war caused by their resistance to settlers' expansion into the Pequot's territory in eastern Connecticut. The battle is commemorated by a monument on the Post Road in Southport.
Fairfield prospered during its first century. Surplus farm products were traded for imported goods. Black Rock Harbor, now part of the City of Bridgeport, became the town's leading port. There, ships were laden with wheat, flax, timber and livestock from the farms and sailed to Boston, New York and harbors as far away as the West Indies. They returned with needed goods such as nails to build their houses, textiles for clothing and furnishings, and molasses to be made into rum. The shipyards and wharves provided employment for many, including slaves. During the colonial period, Fairfield had one of the highest populations of blacks in Connecticut, almost all of whom were enslaved. An idea of how a colonial farming family lived can be gained by a visit to Ogden House, a restored "salt box" farmhouse built circa 1750, at 1520 Bronson Road. The house is operated as a museum by the Fairfield Historical Society.
When the Revolutionary War began in the 1770s, Fairfielders were caught in the crisis as much as if not more than the rest of their neighbors in Connecticut. In a predominantly Tory section of the state, the people of Fairfield were early supporters of the cause for Independence. Throughout the war, a constant battle was being fought across Long Island Sound as men from British-controlled Long Island raided the coast in whaleboats and privateers. Gold Selleck Silliman, whose home still stands on Jennings Road, was put in charge of the coastal defenses. In the spring of 1779, he was kidnapped from his home by Tory forces in preparation for a British raid on Fairfield County. His wife watched from their home as, on the morning of July 7, 1779, approximately 2,000 enemy troops landed on Fairfield Beach near Pine Creek Point and proceeded to invade the town. When they left the following evening, the entire town lay in ruins, burned to the ground as punishment for Fairfield's support of the rebel cause.
Fairfield recovered slowly from the burning, but soon after the end of the war its houses and public buildings had all been rebuilt. Today's Old Town Hall was erected as the Fairfield County Court House in 1794. A second landmark from this area is the Fairfield Academy, built as a private school in 1804 and operated today as a museum by the Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Also on the Town Green sits the Sun Tavern, rebuilt by its owner, Samuel Penfield, after the burning and now owned by the Town of Fairfield. In the Stratfield section of the town is another landmark of the Federal era, the Stratfield Baptist Church, built in l8l3, the oldest house of worship standing in town.
World War I brought Fairfield out of its agrarian past by triggering an unprecedented economic boom in Bridgeport, the center of a large munitions industry. The prosperity created a housing shortage in the city, and many of the workers looked to Fairfield to build their homes. The trolley and later the automobile made the countryside accessible to these newly rich members of the middle class, who brought with them new habits, new attitudes, and new modes of dress. The prosperity lasted through the twenties. By the time of the stock market crash in l929, the population had increased to 17,000 from the 6,000 it had been just before the war. Even during the Depression, the town kept growing. The opening of the Connecticut Turnpike in the 1950s brought another onslaught of development to Fairfield and by the l960s the town's residential, suburban character was firmly established.
Today, Fairfield is a thriving community of over 53,000 residents. Its population is extremely diverse, reflecting the different geographic and ethnic backgrounds of its people. Yet, despite the many changes of the last few years, it is possible today to still examine the history of the people who have lived within Fairfield's bounds during the last 400 years.