Voluntown

About Voluntown

Tucked into the quiet woodlands of eastern Connecticut, Voluntown is one of the state's most peaceful and unhurried small towns — a place where the forest feels closer than the highway. With sprawling state parks, a deep sense of history, and a tight-knit rural community, it offers a genuine escape from Connecticut's busier corners. If you love the outdoors and small-town authenticity, Voluntown is hard to beat.

What to Know

• Pachaug State Forest anchors much of the town — Connecticut's largest state forest covers tens of thousands of acres right here, offering hiking, camping, horseback riding, and some of the best quiet-water paddling in the region.
• The town sits at the Rhode Island border, giving it a rare edge-of-Connecticut feel with easy access to the Ocean State.
• Voluntown's Beach Pond straddles the Connecticut-Rhode Island line and is a beloved local swimming and recreation spot.
• The town is governed by a classic Selectman-town meeting form of government — about as old-school New England as it gets.
• Voluntown's Finnish heritage is quietly distinctive — Finnish ancestry ranks among the most common in town, a legacy of early 20th-century settlement patterns uncommon in the region.

History

Voluntown's very name is a piece of American history: it was named in honor of the colonial volunteers who fought in the King Philip's War of 1675 and chose to remain and settle the land rather than return home. One of its key founders was Lieutenant Thomas Leffingwell, who shepherded the town's approval through the colonial legislature and surveyed its original layout. The town was incorporated in 1721 and spent over 150 years as part of Windham County before joining New London County in 1881.

Community & Living

Voluntown is the kind of place where people come to breathe — residents tend to be deeply connected to the land, the trails, and the slower rhythms of rural New England life. The community is small and proud of it, with a character shaped more by forests and ponds than traffic and commerce.