Stratford Map
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639.
The population was 51,384 as of the 2010 census. It has a historical legacy in aviation, the military, and theater. Stratford is bordered on the west by Bridgeport, to the north by Trumbull and Shelton, and on the east by Milford (across the Housatonic River).
Stratford (formerly known as Cupheag Plantation, and prior to that, Pequonnocke) was founded in 1639 by Puritan leader Reverend Adam Blakeman (pronounced Blackman), William Beardsley, and either 16 families—according to legend—or approximately 35 families—suggested by later research—who had recently arrived in Connecticut from England seeking religious freedom. Stratford is one of many towns in the northeastern American colonies founded as part of the Great Migration in the 1630s when Puritan families fled an increasingly polarized England in the decade before the civil war between Charles I and Parliament (led by Oliver Cromwell). Some of the Stratford settlers were from families who had first moved from England to the Netherlands to seek religious freedom, like their predecessors on the Mayflower, and decided to come to the New World when their children began to adopt the Dutch culture and language.
Nearby cities include Ansonia, West Haven, Westport, New Haven, East Haven.