Located just east of Bethel on Maine Route 26, the Village of Locke Mills in the town of Greenwood lies on the shore of Round Pond which is linked to nearby North Pond and South Pond. One early resident was L. L. Bean, who was born here. The town has shown consistent, moderate population growth over the past forty years.
On the shore of Moosehead Lake, it serves as the gateway to Lily Bay State Park and to the upper reaches of the lake via combined Maine Routes 6 and 15. See video and photos. It is also an access point for Elephant Mountain and the preserved site of a B-52 bomber crash in 1963. In 1853 Henry David Thoreau met his guide, Joseph Atteon, in Greenville before boarding a steamboat passing Mount Kineo, to Northeast Carry for the portage to the West Branch of the Penobscot River.
was a town in Penobscot County, incorporated on January 29, 1834 from Greenfield Plantation. Even though it was growing in population, Greenfield relinquished its status as a town in 1993 and is now an unorganized township.
With the Androscoggin River as its west boundary, the town’s east lies substantially along Sabattus Pond. The more densely populated area surrounds Route 202 near Greene Village. South from there is a rural landscape and views of Sabattus Pond. Inventor Leonard Norcross lived here in the early 19th century as a young boy. Since 1970 the increasingly suburban community in the Lewiston-Auburn area has more than doubled its population.
Located on the east bank of the Penobscot River, Greenbush includes several islands, the largest of which, Olamon, abuts Olamon Stream as it empties into the river. Olamon, the name of a village near the island, means “red paint.” The Indians traveled up the stream to retrieve the red ochre they used as paint for decorating their bodies. Greenbush village is on the River and U.S. Route 2. A smaller village, Cardville, is in the middle of the township on the Cardville Road.
Physical Characteristics Ruffed grouse (or “Partridge”) are the most widely distributed game birds in North America. They rank among the smaller of the 10 species of grouse native to North America with weights ranging from 17 to 25 oz. The subspecies that inhabits Maine is the St. Lawrence or Canada ruffed grouse. Plumage of the…
Chester Greenwood (1858 – 1937) was a Farmington entrepreneur who became famous as the inventor of ear muffs. An inventor for the ordinary man, he could look at a labor intensive job and then figure out how to get it done more simply and comfortably. “Born in 1858, Greenwood was a tall rangy human dynamo…
The small main village is a mile south of Great Pond. The town office, an old church, and a few houses are there. See photos. “Stud Mill Road” runs east-west through the Plantation from Washington and Hancock counties, to the Costigan stud mill in Milford. The Union River, outlet from Great Pond, flows south through Ellsworth to Union River Bay. The Navy has a recreation center at the lake.
While Gray has a storied history, the center of Gray village is a busy contemporary place, the crossroads of 5 highways. See video and photos. In the 1770s it was attacked by Indians, destroying cattle, the meetinghouse and all houses. Home to the historic Pennell Institute and a suburb of the Portland area, Gray includes most of Little Sebago Lake and Crystal Lake.
The sparsely populated area has its main village, Grand Lake Stream, on the stream of the same name that connects West Grand Lake with Big Lake to the south. The surrounding lakes offer a fishing and wilderness experience prized by those who visit them.
State Government in Maine is divided between state and local levels. Unlike the federal government in which states retain certain powers in relation to the national government, local governments have no powers not delegated by state government. Maine state government is rather modest when measured in terms of employees and expenditures compared to the overall…
(1777-1834) was a geographer and one who believed that Maine’s economic and civil success would be best supported by a clear understanding of its geographic, economic, and demographic resources. He became know as “Maine’s First Mapmaker.” [Click each map to see more detailed images from the Osher Map Library.] Born in 1777 in Newburyport, Massachusetts,…
Linda Greenlaw (1962 – ) has written several bestselling books about her life as a commercial fisherman and the culture of fishing. Before Linda became a best selling author she was a commercial fisherman for seventeen years. As the Barnes & Noble biography puts it, Growing up on coastal Maine, Linda Greenlaw was entranced by…
(1839-1892), an early female lighthouse keeper in Maine, was born in Rockland, the fourth of nine children born to Samuel and Thankful Burgess. She lived and went to school in Rockland until she was fourteen years old when she and her family moved to Matinicus Rock, where her father became a lighthouse keeper. Life on…
The Name commemorates the large and fertile island within the town and in the middle of the St. John River just south of the village of Lille. Lille is home to an extraordinary Catholic church, a nationally recognized historic place. See photos. U.S. Route 1 and the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad both hug the Maine side of the St. John River.
First inhabited by Europeans in 1700, the town occupies the upper portion of a peninsular stretching from Frenchman’s Bay on the west to West Bay and Gouldsboro Bay on the east. a town of working fishermen and summer visitors, its harbors, such as Birch, Prospect and tiny Corea, offer welcome protection to coastal vessels.
First called Narragansett Number 7, it was granted to men who fought in the Narragansett War of 1675. Gorham Academy, founded 1803, became Western State Normal School, University of Maine at Gorham, and now Gorham Campus of the University of Southern Maine. The home of former governor Percival P. Baxter has become a museum of Indian artifacts and rare coins. Several other notables lived here.
(1857-1946) a U.S. Senator from Maine, was born in East Corinth, March 16, 1857. He attended the common schools and East Corinth Academy. Gould moved to Presque Isle in 1887, engaged in the lumber business and built power plants and an electric railroad. He served as president of the Aroostook Valley Railroad Company from 1902…
(1565 1647) along with Captain John Mason, was granted ownership of land, to be called The Province of Maine, in 1622 by the Great Council of New England. Earlier, he had taken care of three Indians who had been kidnapped by George Waymouth (Weymouth) in 1605, returning them to America in 1607. In 1629, Mason…
John Goodwin (1824-1887) a U.S. Representative and a Delegate from the Territory of Arizona, was born in South Berwick on October 18, 1824. He attended public schools and the local academy at Berwick, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1844. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1848, commencing practice in South Berwick.…