Green's Farms is the oldest neighborhood in the town of Westport in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It was first listed as a census-designated place at the 2020 census. [1]
Green's Farms is the oldest neighborhood in the town of Westport in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It was first listed as a census-designated place at the 2020 census. [1]
The boundaries of the neighborhood, like those of most neighborhoods with no governmental status, are vague, but according to a New York Times article in 2001, "generally, a resident can confidently claim a Green's Farms address if the property lies within the area bounded by Hillspoint Road, the Fairfield town line and the Post Road". The Greens Farms census-designated place as drawn in 2020 follows the same boundaries. [2] According to the same article, Turkey Hill Road and Morningside Drive are the heart of the neighborhood. [3]
The neighborhood enjoys a temperate climate and has many ecological systems, including a salt marsh.
Greens Farms is the home to a private coeducational K-12 institution that bears its namesake: Greens Farms Academy. The Green's Farms Railroad Station is located on New Creek Road. Exit 18 of Interstate 95 serves the neighborhood. Sherwood Island State Park is at the western edge of Greens Farms. The Nyala Farms Corporate Center, north of Sherwood Island, is home to Terex Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, and Pequot Capital Management, a large investment management fund.
Green's Farms Elementary School serves students in kindergarten through Grade 5 in a Gothic-style building with a newer wing on the back containing a library-media center, computer lab and gymnasium. [3]
The land holdings of John Green, one of the first five settlers, known collectively as the Bankside Farmers , were known as Green's Farm by 1699. [4] In 1732 the area was officially renamed Green's Farms. [5]
Within the area of Greens Farms is Frost Point named after one of the other Bankside Farmers Daniel Frost. [6]
Greens Farms is also spelled in its original form, Green's Farms.
The First Congregational Church of Green's Farms, Green's Farms Railroad Station, The New York Times and the Green's Farms Association all use the apostrophe in the neighborhood name, which is used about half of the time. The Town of Westport, Connecticut state government and local newspapers do not. [3]
In 1648 the Town of Fairfield officially gave five farmers, collectively known as the Bankside Farmers, permission to settle the fertile land that the Pequot people were living in. [7] The Bankside Farmers purchased the land from the Pequot who called it Machamux ("beautiful land"). [7] The land that the Pequot sold, then within the original boundaries of the Town of Fairfield, stretched from "Frost Point an English mile along the seacoast toward Compaw, and six or seven miles inland." [6] The Pequot moved to an area "elevated back east of this strip". [6]
The first three settlers were Thomas Newton, Henry Gray and John Green. Daniel Frost and Francis Andrews later joined the Bankside Farmers making five in total. [6]
They lived at the western end of what became Beachside Avenue. [8]
On Green's Farms Road near Morningside Drive is the site of the first West Parish Common, the first schoolhouse, and the first meeting house. A small park there has a monument called Machamux Boulder. [8]
Over the next 50 years, more land was bought from the Indians and the community grew. In 1711 the "West Parish of Fairfield" was established with church and civil functions. In 1732, the area was renamed "Green's Farms" in honor of John Green, one of the original five Bankside Farmers. [8]
During the American Revolution, British soldiers burned down the Meeting House in a raid that also destroyed 15 houses and 11 barns. [3] The only church property saved was the communion service that Deacon Ebenezer Jesup rescued by hiding it in his well. For the next 10 years, members of the church met in private homes. In 1789 a new church building was erected at the church's modern site at Hillandale Road. To raise money, pews were auctioned off. That building was replaced and, in April 1852, a fire forced another replacement the next year. [9]
Burial Hill Beach was acquired by the Town of Westport in 1893. [8]
In 1950, strong winds toppled the Congregational Church steeple, sending it through the roof of the Sunday School room (later the church parlor). The repair effort was expanded to include lighting for the steeple and a new Sunday School room which would double as a church social hall and the construction of a Sunday School wing. In 1961, the present social hall was added, together with more classrooms, a church office, ministers' offices and a choir room. [9]
Famous residents of the neighborhood include or included actress Gene Tierney, writer Peter Straub, Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue, comedian Rodney Dangerfield, film producer Harvey Weinstein and the radio talk-show host Don Imus. Martha Stewart once owned a home on Turkey Hill Road, from which she taped a television program, but she moved after long-running controversies about the effect of her television production business on the neighborhood. [3] Edward M. Grout, a lawyer and New York City Comptroller, lived and died in Greens Farms.
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Fairfield County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 957,419, representing 26.6% of Connecticut's overall population. The closest to the center of the New York metropolitan area, the county contains four of the state's seven largest cities—Bridgeport (first), Stamford (second), Norwalk (sixth) and Danbury (seventh)—whose combined population of 433,368 is nearly half the county's total population.
Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. As of 2020, the town had a population of 61,512. The town is part of the Greater Bridgeport Planning Region.
Wilton is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 18,503. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region.
Oxford is a residential town located in western New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was 12,706 at the 2020 Census. Oxford is the 26th-wealthiest town in the state by median household income. Distinct settled areas in the town include Oxford Center, Quaker Farms, and Riverside. Oxford belongs to the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area, a subregion of the New York metropolitan area.
Darien is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles (34 km2), it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast.
Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Located in the Gold Coast along the Long Island Sound, it is 48 miles (77 km) northeast of New York City and is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. Westport's public school system is ranked as the top public school district in Connecticut and 17th best school district in the United States.
Southport is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Fairfield, Connecticut, United States. It is located along Long Island Sound between Mill River and Sasco Brook, where it borders Westport. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 1,710. Settled in 1639, Southport center has been designated a local historic district since 1967. In 1971, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Southport Historic District.
Greenfield Hill is an affluent historic neighborhood in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States, roughly bounded by Easton to the north, southern Burr Street/northern Black Rock Turnpike to the east, and Southport and Westport to the south and west respectively. The core of the neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as the Greenfield Hill Historic District.
Henry Burr Sherwood was an inventor, miller, and farmer in Westport, Connecticut.
The Bankside Farmers were a group of five men who established themselves along the Long Island Sound south of Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1648. The area is now known as Greens Farms, a section of Westport, Connecticut.
Sherwood Island State Park is a public recreation area on the shore of Long Island Sound in the Greens Farms section of Westport, Connecticut. The state park offers swimming, fishing, and other activities on 238 acres (96 ha) of beach, wetlands, and woodlands. Sherwood Island is numbered as Connecticut's first state park because state purchase of land at the site began in 1914. The park is managed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Nichols, a historic village in southwestern Trumbull in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, is named after the family who maintained a large farm in its center for almost 300 years. The Nichols Farms Historic District, which encompasses part of the village, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Originally home to the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation, the area was colonized by the English during the Great Migration of the 1630s as a part of the coastal settlement of Stratford. The construction of the Merritt Parkway through the village, and the subsequent closing of stores and factories, turned the village into a bedroom community in 1939. Aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky lived in three separate homes in Nichols during his active years between 1928 and 1951, when he designed, built and flew fixed-wing aircraft and put the helicopter into mass production for the first time.
Cannondale is a census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Wilton in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had a population of 141 at the 2010 census. The neighborhood consists of many old homes on large, almost rural lots now largely wooded. The English first settled the land in the 17th century. At the center of Cannondale is Cannon Crossing, a small shopping village of boutiques and restaurants made up of 19th-century buildings restored by actress June Havoc in the late 1970s on the east side of Cannondale Railroad Station. Both are part of Cannondale Historic District, which encompasses the central part of Cannondale and most of its significant historical buildings.
The Southport Historic District in the town of Fairfield, Connecticut is a 225-acre (91 ha) area historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. It preserves a portion of the modern neighborhood and former borough of Southport, Connecticut. Since the British burnt almost all of Southport's structures in 1779, there is only one home built prior to that date, the Meeker House at 824 Harbor Road, which survives.
Compo is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Westport, Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is in the south-central part of the town, lying between the Saugatuck River and the neighborhood of Saugatuck to the west, and Compo Cove, Sherwood Millpond, and the neighborhood of Greens Farms to the east. The CDP extends south to Compo Beach on Long Island Sound and north to U.S. Route 1. Interstate 95 crosses the middle of the CDP from east to west, with access from either Saugatuck or Greens Farms.
Norwichtown is a historic neighborhood in the city of Norwich, Connecticut, United States. It is generally the area immediately north of the Yantic River between I-395 and Route 169.
The Greens Farms School is a historic school building at Morningside Drive South and Boston Post Road in the Greens Farms neighborhood of Westport, Connecticut. It was built in 1925 and received an addition in 1950. It was designed by architect Charles Cutler in a Tudor Revival style, and is a fine example of such style. It is the only Tudor Revival school building in Westport. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
The Unity Burial Ground is a small graveyard located on the southeast end of White Plain in the Nichols section of Trumbull, Connecticut. It is located a few rods north of the site of the first meeting house that was built in the parish of Unity, off of White Plains Road. The cemetery was laid out in 1730 and the first burial was that of 7 year old Samuel Bennitt on June 21, 1731. There are over 110 gravestones, 90 unmarked field stones and 241 known grave sites, and most of the original stones face east. This is unusual, as it runs contrary to the common practice of placing stones so that they face the road. The latest known burial was for Charles E Booth Jr. on August 17, 1935.
Long Hill is a neighborhood and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Trumbull in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is located west of the Pequonnock River. The main thoroughfare is Connecticut Route 111, present-day Main Street. It was listed as a census-designated place prior to the 2020 census.
The Gold Coast, also known as Lower Fairfield County or Southwestern Connecticut, is an affluent part of Western Connecticut that includes the entire southern portion of Fairfield County as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, Super-Public Use Microdata Area (Super-PUMA) Region 09600. The area is about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of New York City, and is home to many wealthy Manhattan business executives. Parts of the region are served by the Western Connecticut Council of Governments.
