Norwich, Connecticut: Mill Town at the Head of the Thames

Norwich was established in 1658-59, when 69 families from Saybrook settled at the head of the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut. By 1694 residents had built a public landing there for trade, and through the nineteenth century the city grew into a manufacturing hub, producing textiles, armaments, and specialty goods along a rail line to Springfield. Smith & Wesson got its start here in 1852, developing the "Volcanic" repeating rifle at the water-powered confluence of the Shetucket and Yantic Rivers. Norwich is also the birthplace of Benedict Arnold, born in 1741 before his 1781 betrayal led him to burn nearby New London. Long before any of that, the gorge and waterfall at Uncas Leap on the Yantic River had already been sacred Mohegan ground since 1643, site of the Battle of Great Plains; the city acquired it as a heritage park in 2010.

Norwich is a drive-to destination reached via I-395, connecting to CT Route 2/2A and Route 32, with routes from Boston, Hartford, New York, and Providence all converging there. There is no rail station in Norwich itself — the nearest trains are at New London Union Station to the south, the terminus of Shore Line East commuter rail and also an Amtrak Northeast Corridor stop.

The Slater Memorial Museum, on the Norwich Free Academy campus, is one of only two museums in the country situated on a high school campus, holding roughly 10,000 objects by about 1,000 artists. The 1675 Leffingwell House, a pre-Revolutionary tavern by 1701, opens seasonally April through October. Chestnut Street Playhouse stages community theater year-round downtown. For an overnight stay, The Spa at Norwich Inn occupies a 1929 Georgian-manor estate on 42 acres, now owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, with 27 treatment rooms and two on-site restaurants.