Place:Old Lyme, New London, Connecticut, United States

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Old Lyme is a coastal town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The main street of the town, Lyme Street, is a historic district with several homes once owned by sea captains. Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is located in Old Lyme and there is a thriving art community in the town. There are several seasonal beach communities in Old Lyme (Point O Woods, Hawks Nest, Miami Beach). The town is named after Lyme Regis, England.

The Florence Griswold Museum is located in Old Lyme, as is the Lyme Art Association.Its neighboring town of Lyme is the namesake for Lyme disease.

The town of Old Lyme contains several villages, including Black Hall, Laysville, Soundview, and South Lyme. The total population of the town was 7,628 at the 2020 census.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Old Lyme is a community of about 7,600 permanent residents, in addition to several thousand seasonal vacationers who occupy a seaside community of summer residences. It is located on the east bank of the Connecticut River at its confluence with the Long Island Sound, across the river from Old Saybrook on the west bank. Numerous examples of Colonial and Federal architecture can be found throughout the town.

The town of Lyme was set off from Saybrook (now known as Deep River), which is on the west bank of the river mouth, on February 13, 1665. South Lyme was later incorporated from Lyme in 1855, then renamed Old Lyme in 1857 because it contains the oldest-settled portion of the "Lymes". Old Lyme occupies about of shoreline, tidal marsh, inland wetlands and forested hills. Its neighbor to the north is the town of Lyme, and to the east is East Lyme. Other placenames from the same root are Hadlyme (between Lyme and East Haddam) and South Lyme (a beach resort area of Old Lyme). The placename "Lyme" derives from Lyme Regis, a small port on the coast of Dorset, England, from which it is believed the early settlers migrated in the 17th century. The picturesque Old Lyme Cemetery contains the graves of the original settlers. The Duck River flows through the cemetery and into the Connecticut River at Watch Rock Park.

Lyme disease was named after the town. It was discovered in 1975 after a mysterious outbreak of what appeared to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in children who lived in Lyme and Old Lyme.

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