The Shaw Mansion is rich with history. It was built by Captain Nathaniel Shaw beginning in 1756. In the year French refugees from Nova Scotia arrived in New London with few resources and few choices. Captain Shaw put them to work cutting the granite ledge on his property overlooking the Thames River to erect his granite mansion dwelling.
   Twenty years later Captain Shaw and his family were hosts to to George Washington who was moving his army from Cambridge to New York in April 1776, via New London. Shortly after that, Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., a major revolutionary and first selectman of the town at that time, was named as Navel Agent for Connecticut, and the house became navel headquarters for Connecticut’s state navy as well as close to fifty privateers working out of New London.
   New London eventually paid for their success at privateering when Benedict Arnold came to town with a force of 1600 British, German and loyalist soldiers in 1781, burning the town and attacking the force of defenders at Fort Griswold overlooking the harbor on the opposite side of the river. The Shaw Mansion was one of the structures near the harbor to survive the attack.