Interesting facts

• The Sherwood Mill Pond (Old Mill) is an 84-acre tidal estuary and verdant salt marsh, bordered by Long Island Sound, Sherwood Island State Park, I95 and Hillspoint Road.
• The land that comprises the Mill Pond and Sherwood Island was originally known by its Indian name:  Machamux, “The Beautiful Land.”
• Tidal shifts provided the primary force to turn the wheel for the mill.
• The pond’s grist mill was the area’s first truly commercial venture, fulfilling the requirements for the area now known as Westport to be incorporated.
• Technically, the land that forms the residential portion of the cove is part of Sherwood Island.
• “Captain Allen” (who wasn’t a captain at all) was one of the original suppliers to The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station — with clams and oysters he harvested from the pond. He later opened Allen’s Clam House on the pond.
• In 1932, Fanny Elwood Sherwood sold her 24 acres of onion and potato farm to the state of Connecticut, ultimately, creating its first state park.
• Another familiar name to locals, William Burr, was the primary force behind Sherwood Island’s preservation as a park. It was at different times slated to be an airport and a housing development.
• Early Pond inhabitants in the ‘20s and ‘30s learned they had phone calls when the Old Mill Store’s son yelled from the beach on a megaphone that a call came through on their pay phone.
• The original lots on the cove sold for $200.
• Harbor Watch, a Westport-based non profit, regularly monitors the streams of the Mill Pond; testing and reporting on water cleanliness.
• The Sherwood Mill Pond Advisory Committee is appointed by the First Selectman, Town of Westport and is led by a Chairperson and Westport's Conservation Department.

"The millponds of Long Island Sound are important places of history, ecology, and beauty — this book captures the unique elements of such a special, and vital, place!"
-Leigh Shemitz, Ph.D., President, SoundWaters