The first European colonists to arrive include
William Chesebrough and
Walter Palmer in
Wequetequock,
Thomas Minor in
Quiambaug, and
Thomas Stanton in Pawcatuck. Stanton established a trading house in the
Pawcatuck section of town in 1649. The present territory of Stonington was part of lands that had belonged to the
Pequot people, who referred to the areas making up Stonington as
Paquatuck (Stony Brook to the
Pawcatuck River) and
Mistack (
Mystic River to Stony Brook). It was named "Souther Towne" or Southerton by
Massachusetts in 1658, and officially became part of Connecticut in 1662 when Connecticut received its royal charter. Southerton was renamed "Mistick" in 1665, and finally named Stonington in 1666, The town of
North Stonington was set off as a parish from Stonington in 1724 and incorporated as a town in 1807.
Sir Thomas Hardy led a British squadron during the War of 1812 consisting of
HMS Ramillies,
HMS Pactolus,
HMS Dispatch, and
HMS Terror. The ships appeared off Stonington Point on August 9, 1814, and Hardy demanded that the town surrender. The town Selectmen replied with a note which stated, "We shall defend the place to the last extremity; should it be destroyed, we shall perish in its ruins." Hardy's squadron then bombarded Stonington for three days using
stinkpots, while American forces in the town responded by firing at the British warships with two
18-pounder cannons. The only American casualty from the bombardment was an elderly woman who was already mortally ill, while Hardy's squadron suffered several killed and wounded before sailing away on August 12. American poet
Philip Freneau wrote: A memorial in Cannon Square at the center of
Stonington Borough was constructed to memorialize the 1814 bombardment that became known as the
Battle of Stonington. It consists of the two 18-pounder cannons that were used by American forces during the engagement and a granite obelisk. From the 1790s onward, Stonington experienced an economic upturn as its harbor became home to a fleet of American merchant ships engaged in
seal hunting, targeting whales off the
Patagonian coastline and selling their skins in
China. Six sealing ships from Stonington commanded by Benjamin Pendleton set sail in 1820 to hunt whales off
Deception Island, and on November 16, 1820
Nathaniel Palmer first sighted
Palmer Land, which was named for him. The
Stonington Harbor Light is a low stone building erected in 1840. In 1925, it became the flagship museum of the
Stonington Historical Society, making it the oldest lighthouse museum in America. During the 19th century, Stonington supported a small fishing, whaling, and sealing fleet that carried out trade with the
West Indies—with enough volume for it to be made a port of entry in 1842. This saw a huge explosion in
Portuguese immigration to the village from the
Azores via whaling vessels. The small granite Customs House faces Main Street just north of Cannon Square. The
Groton and Stonington Street Railway was a trolley line created in 1904 to serve the Stonington area. The trolley was dismantled and replaced by buses in 1928. In recent decades, Stonington has experienced a large influx of new home owners using historic
Stonington Borough houses as second homes. The town has undergone a widespread reconditioning of these homes since the mid-1990s, when an altercation over property rights attracted substantial news coverage about Stonington's revitalization. Today, Stonington is home to the last
commercial fishing fleet in Connecticut. ==Geography==