Old Saybrook, Connecticut:
“SAY – BROOKE
Founded November 1635. First English settlement on south shore of New England. Named for Viscount Say and Seale and Robert, Lord Brooke, two of the group of English nobility and gentry who, in 1632, received a patent from Robert, Earl of Warwick, to lands from the Narragansett River to the Pacific Ocean. A fort was established at the mouth of the Connecticut River to protect it for English colonists. First church was organized in 1646 in the fort’s Great Hall. Fourth edifice, built 1840, stands opposite. Many nearby towns sprang from Say-Brooke. Site of original colony now called Old Saybrook.
Erected by the Connecticut Historical Commission and the Old Saybrook Historical Society. Inc.”
