Map of Maine Counties and Baxter Park Click to enlarge Somerset County is the the ninth most populous of the sixteen counties, located in north central Maine, formed on March 1, 1809 from the northern portion of Kennebec County. In 1838 substantial sections of the county were given up to form Piscataquis and Franklin counties. See an 1860 map of the county in the Map Cabinet.

A series of boundary changes in the 19th century came to an end in 1885 when a portion of Wellington in Piscataquis County was annexed to Cambridge in Somerset.

The county now consists of the towns of Anson, Athens, Bingham, Cambridge, Canaan, Caratunk, Cornville, Detroit, Embden, Fairfield, Harmony, Hartland, Jackman, Madison, Mercer, Moose River, Moscow, NewPortland, Norridgewock, Palmyra, Pittsfield, Ripley, Skowhegan, Smithfield, Solon, St.Albans, Starks; and the plantations of  Brighton, Dennistown, Highland, Pleasant Ridge, The Forks, and West-Forks; and the townships of Concord, and Rockwood-Strip, among others.

The county contains U.S. Route 201 which extends about 100 miles from its southern most point to the border with the Province of Quebec.

Skowhegan is the most populous town and is the County Seat, hosting the county government, courthouse, and the county jail.

In 2010, Somerset County’s population represented 3.9% of the state’s total, with a census count of 52,228 a 2.6% increase over 2000.

National Register of Historic Place

Somerset County Courthouse

[High and Court Street] Though obviously an architecturally distinguished building and the work of two out- standing architects, the Somerset County Courthouse has an interesting political history. Charles F. Douglas who designed his own house in Norridgewock, designed the original structure in 1873. The county outgrew the building by the end of the century. It was enlarged and remodeled in 1904 with sensitivity to the Douglas design by John Calvin Stevens, Maine’s most famous architect.

On March 1, 1809, the northern part of the Kennebec County was incorporated under the name of Somerset County with Norridgewock as the county seat. A later act of 1872 changed the county seat to Skowhegan provided that town would provide a suitable place for holding court within a very short time or the act would be void. Skowhegan immediately prepared temporary space, but the County Commissioners declared it unsatisfactory, because of the competition with Norridgewock.

Much litigation was only settled when ex-Governor Abner Coburn of Skowhegan, perhaps the wealthiest man in the state, offered to pay for a large formal courthouse in Skowhegan, an offer the county as a whole could not refuse.