[CAR-thij] is a town in Franklin County, first settled by William Bowley and a Mr. Winter.  Bowley built “Boley’s Mills” on the Webb River. It is a small town along the Webb River in northwestern Maine. The town was plotted in 1803 and settled beginning in 1812. In 1823 a small village grew up around a mill site.

Incorporated on February 20, 1826 from Plantation Number 4 in that county, it later (1849) set off land to form a new Plantation Number 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town, named for the classical North African city, is north of Dixfield on Maine Route 142, which follows the winding Webb River to the southern tip of Webb Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is how George Varney viewed the town in 1886:

Across the broad pine-covered plain in the northern and middle part, runs, in a tortuous course southward, Webb’s River, the outlet of Webb Pond.  The eastern part of the town is hilly, but the soil in general is moderately good. There is much limestone in the town; and near the centre is a quarry which has been worked to some extent. . . . The principal village is Berry’s Mills, on Webb’s River, in the western part of the town.  It is 29 miles south-west of Farmington, and is connected by stage-line with the Androscoggin Railroad at North Jay.

In 1886 Carthage had six public schoolhouses.  In 1870 its population was 486; in 1880 is was 507 – both about the same as in recent decades.

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Form of Government: Town Meeting-Select Board.

Additional resources

[All images 2013 unless otherwise noted]

Campbell, N. H. “Carthage is Nearly 130 Years of Age.” 1932 Feb.5 (Cataloger Note: Newspaper article from the Franklin Journal. [Maine State Library]

Varney, George J. A Gazetteer of the State of Maine. 1886. pp. 164-165.

National Register of Historic Places – Listings

Coburn, John G., House

[360 River Road] Coburn Farm is a unique structure in Carthage and the surrounding communities. Built in 1824 by Oliver Newman Sr., and Julia Leavitt Newman, it was the only brick structure still standing in Carthage in 2002 when the National Register nomination was made.

Oliver Newman Sr., and his brother Leavitt Newman arrived in town along the Webb River Valley. All structures on the farm feature massive cut-granite foundations. By the end of the decade Oliver and his wife Julia had obtained some of the most fertile land along the Webb River and built a two-story brick house, and the English style barn. Their farm was successful for decades.

 

 

In the 1920s the farm passed to Archibald Coburn, farmer and mill owner, and upon his death to Avila (Parker) Coburn. It was sold outside of the immediate family in 1973 to a distant relation of Julia Newman. Reduced over time to 29 acres the Coburn farm continues as a working farm; the barns shelter sheep and chicken, and milch cows graze on the fertile plains. There were relatively few 19th century houses remaining in Carthage in 2002; as with the farms they supported, they have succumbed to the elements and the vagaries inherent in subsistence farming in the western mountains of Maine. Fortunately, the buildings and the endeavors of the Coburn farm provide a continuity of history in 2002 that may be fading in Carthage.  [B&W Photos in 2002 by uncredited photographer for Maine Historic Preservation Commission.]