Mystic’s more than a Connecticut seaport town. It’s a connection to America, early, early America, and to some recent seafarers too.

Three days in this lush green village by the harbor pulled me closer to my nation’s ocean-going history with a dose of George Washington and the colonists too.

Sure the shopping’s fine in downtown by the drawbridge and at Olde Mistick Village near Exit 90 from Interstate 95, but the essence of Mystic is in the boats of many sizes, their builders and captains, the explorers who sailed them and the homes of their families.

The wonder of much of that is easy to access in two big facilities, but uncovering the back story takes some extra attention.

Definitely worthwhile to look into and then beyond the Museum of America and the Sea at Mystic Seaport and the Aquarium with its Institute for Exploration. Experiencing both is an all-day adventure, or two if you try everything.

Both are active, living breathing places engaged in the people, labors, pleasures and creatures of the sea.

Beyond them and the bustling tourist traffic on Greenmanville Avenue, which is also State Highway 27, are gently curving roads, handsome architecture, old cemeteries, peaceful nature centers, historic homes to tour and almost always a glimpse of the water.

Mystic’s not on the ocean; all the beautiful views of sails and tall masts are the Mystic River, the Mystic Harbor and Long Island Sound.

Mystic’s also sort of a tease: two post offices and no city hall. Stonington and Groton are town names to hold onto because even though you think Mystic is the destination, some time in these villages, and Noank too, should be part of the holiday.

Everything’s close. In fact, walking the grounds of Mystic Seaport, climbing aboard the National Historic Landmark vessels there and chatting with the craftsmen in their 19th century-style workshops needs more hours than getting to the next-door boroughs.

Reading “Moby Dick” didn’t prepare me for the massive size of the wooden whaling ship at Mystic Seaport, reportedly the only one remaining in the world.

The Charles W. Morgan is out of the water, undergoing restoration and open for visits. Where else can you see a blubber room?

She made 37 working voyages from 1841–1920, one of them lasting five years at sea, with a crew of 36 men. When funds are raised and restoration complete, she’ll get back in the water.

I heard a figure of $8.2 million.

That’s how things happen at Mystic Seaport—for real. Sail mending and sail making were interesting to watch, especially when I learned they’d be catching wind on the Joseph Conrad.

Built in 1882, the Conrad was a training vessel for boys headed to the Merchant Marine. Today she’s a summer camp, teaching boys age 10 to 15 to sail. They live on board just as those fellows did more than a century ago and visitors like me get to walk around the decks.

Climb aboard the L. A. Dunton too, a 19th century fishing schooner.

Hands are busy and conversations plentiful in the village. I hung out with Michael DeNola while he was shaping iron for the whaling ship. Many living history museums have blacksmiths but Mystic Seaport has shipsmiths in a shop brimming with tools, harpoons, hoops and items unknown to me but vital for a whaler.

Indoor galleries expand the sea stories too with figureheads, nautical art, yachting tales and voyaging accounts, and a Rowing Hall of Fame.

Go in June like I did and you might discover the intriguing Wooden Boat Show, a busy cheerful event in its 19th year all about wooden boats and the people who own and love them. I don’t have one but enjoyed admiring the people who do.

Get a sense of Mystic and the sea family neighborhoods on the other side of the river; a 50-foot long model with 250 detailed buildings shows how the town looked between 1850 and1870.

Then look across the harbor to see some of those homes. Even better, cross the drawbridge—which is often up because this is a busy harbor—and turn right on Pearl Street to River Road.

Sheep, pigs, goats and chickens were abundant in the early days, and traded well for rum, sugar and pineapples on ships sailing between Mystic and the Caribbean Islands.

Just beyond this row of houses built by ship’s carpenters, a left-hand turn offers up the site of Mystic’s 1930s and ‘40s peace conferences.

From the close of World War I until the start of WWII, the conference was held; today the land is a peaceful place, a sanctuary apart from the bustling town and seaport. A girls’ camp was held here in the early 1900s, reportedly the first in America.

That’s the way it is in Mystic: history that seems significant even though I’d not learned it before and an active modern-day application in the same space.

The Aquarium has 3,500 sea creatures and since it’s in a long-time seaport, an interactive experience with deep-sea wrecks, ancient sunken artifacts and creatures of the abyss.

Robert Ballard who discovered the Titanic wreck in 1985 heads up the Institute for Exploration connected to the Mystic Aquarium. This is all about deep-sea archeology, underwater robotics and deep-water mapping and imaging.

Visit all that after watching ship restoration at the Seaport and then simply gaze at the harbor, imagining ship’s crews and their families.

I found a good bench for doing just that, on a hill outside the 1904 residence at the Inn of Mystic. Five rooms to rent in this beautiful historic house plus the Gate House and motor inn for a total of 68 rooms throughout 15 acres of gardens and gentle slopes.

This used to be a peach orchard and today the 18 acres feature gardens, gentle slopes, walking trails, swimming pool, tennis courts and easy access to sailboats, canoes and kayaks. WiFi too.

Tea is served at 4:00 p.m. every day, and like the exquisite breakfast, is complimentary. Innkeeper Jody Dyer believes in fresh local produce, superb flavors and abundance.

She’s a patriot and the stars and stripes fly high on that hill with my bench, a beacon to the harbor.

“I just think America is great, and Americans are great,” she declares enthusiastically. “George Washington is one of my favorites—what a charismatic personality.

“I would love to have known him,” Dyer says.

Make sure you meet her when you go to Mystic because she knows the connections to Mystic history, and American independence.

Dyer will point you toward the 1649 home of William Chesebrough in Stonington; he left England with his mother, wife and two children in 1630 with John Winthrop, a name I recall from history classes about the colonists.

She’ll recommend a visit to the Wequetequock burial ground with grave markers in the 1660s and 1700s. Wolfstones cover some, a ledge of rock to protect the body from animals.

Wandering here with the brochure at the cemetery gate sort of put me in contact with the colonists.

A little further down the road in Stonington I discovered Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer. His house is open for tours and the tales told there are amazing. This sea captain and his brother Alexander followed seals for their fur, an easier lucrative profession than whaling says Stonington Historical Society Director Mary Beth Baker.

They were so focused on their work in 1820 they kept going 15,000 miles and sighted land “not yet laid down on my chart.”

Turns out they discovered Antarctica and the Falklands. That explains why my atlas says Palmer Station on that map.

A model of their ship for the long voyage, The Hero, is on display, a little sloop just 47 feet long with a five man crew.

A visitor with nautical designs on his shirt sharing the guided tour with me really registered that fact saying with awe, “My boat is 55 feet and that’s only for pleasure.”

Admiral Byrd knew about the Palmer brothers and came here in 1928 to study their diaries and records before his trek to Antarctica.

I didn’t know much about packets and clippers and schooners, but the Palmer brothers designed and captained some of the fastest, Baker says, and the exhibits in this 1853 house helped me get the picture of the land I was in.

Downtown in the Borough of Stonington did too with the Old Lighthouse Museum, an 1823 stone tower now filled with interesting exhibits about ice cutting, pottery, the China trade, steamboats and a terrific doll house.

Sit on the back lawn—another fine bench like the Inn at Mystic—and gaze out to sea, then stroll the charming Main and Water streets about a mile. Pick up the self-guided tour brochure at the lighthouse museum.

Make sure you hunt up prescient studios and friendly, welcoming gallery on Meadow Avenue. That’s where master glassblower Jeffrey P’an fuses old world techniques he studied in Italy with modern vision in a former velvet mill in this charming historic village.

That’s the Mystic mystique—little neighboring communities filled with the past, and fully functioning with an eye toward the future.