The ancient fort at Saybrook, built by Plymouth people in 1635, stood upon a steep and solitary knoll near the Connecticut River, which in 1872 was carried off bodily by a railroad to make embankments across the adjacent lowlands. The earliest governor of the colony came out in 1636, Colonel Fenwick, afterwards one of the regicide judges. Old Saybrook is now a quiet village, chiefly spread along one handsome wide street, canopied over by the arching branches of its stately elms, under which the distant vista view looks almost like a scene through a veritable foliage tunnel. The broad Connecticut flows in front, back and forth with the tide from the Sound, its restfulness in keeping with the ancient town, as yet uninvaded by business bustle or manufacturing energy. The Saybrook fort repelled the Pequots in 1637; and afterwards, in the Connecticut boundary disputes with the Dutch at New York, the latter, according to the veracious chronicler, marched against it "brimful of wrath and cabbage," but seeing it would be stoutly defended, he adds that "they thought best to desist before attacking." The British captured it in 1814, and ascending the river in a sudden raid, destroyed a large number of vessels. THE THAMES TO THE PAWCATUCK. The river Thames, coming down out of the hills and receiving the Quinnebaug, flows into the Sound twenty miles east of the Connecticut, and here is the pleasant city of New London, with about fifteen thousand people. Thus the early settlers renewed in the New England colony the names of old London and Father Thames, replacing the original Indian titles of Pequot for the town and Mohegan for the river. New London is built on a hillside, famous for comfortable old mansions and noble trees on the hilly streets, running down the declivity to the harbor, in the upper part of which is a navy yard. On either side of the harbor entrance are the gray walls and grassy mounds of the ancient defensive works, Forts Griswold and Trumbull, which got their chief scars during the Revolution. The most sacred New London memory is of Nathan Hale, who lived there, his little house being preserved as a relic. The Thames is a fine estuary, and upon it are sailed the great Yale and Harvard boat-races. New London was the headquarters of the Connecticut navy during the Revolution, a fleet of twenty-six vessels. After Arnold's treason, he came in September, 1780, with ships and a large force of troops, captured Fort Trumbull and burnt the town. Afterwards they attacked Fort Griswold across the river, losing large numbers in storming it, and when the garrison had surrendered they were massacred. A fine granite Obelisk contains the names of the slain, and bears the inscription: "Zebulon and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives till death in the high places of the Lord." The people of New London go down to the Sound for recreation and clam-bakes, the wide-spreading beaches having numerous hotels and summer cottages.