Limington Historical Society

06/22/2026

05/29/2026

Population Trend

The slide attached to this post compares Limington’s population with that of neighboring towns. Lots can be written about the rise and fall of each town’s population. Historian Elizabeth Ring wrote her thoughts on Limington’s decline in a continuation of the essay shared in last week’s Revolutionary War Veteran post. That she wrote the essay in 1948 is reflected in her thoughts of Limington’s (then) population decline.

“What has happened to Limington is the fate of many a Maine town. Its population now, 864, is hardly more than the number who were in the town in 1790 when it was incorporated. The population increased rapidly at first until it reached its peak of 2,317, in 1840. Gradually a decline set in. Virgin forest that had attracted settlers to the S**o and Little Ossipee Rivers by 1840 had suffered depletion. Much of the growth had been in the south of the town. With the best timber cut, the land was hardly more than a plain covered with scrub growth, with sandy barren soil that never had been fit for farming no matter how willing a man was to work the clock around to support his family.

"Toward the west and north of the town, the land rose abruptly, forming hills with deep valleys between. Uneven and rocky, the wonder is that early settlers who spent prodigious labor in erecting fine farm buildings ever could have believed that the land was productive enough to warrant their labor. It may have deserved their hope of a better life, sustaining them when living standards were low. But families grew. Sons begat sons. Little wonder that men of the third generation went to growing manufacturing towns nearby, or to better agricultural lands in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

"The Gold Rush and the Civil War increased the ranks of those who left never to return. Over a third of the male population of military age served in the Civil War, and fully a half of those who did, never returned to take their place in town affairs.

"After the war the exodus continued. Hardly a Limington by who went to college in this period returned to live in town and give it the benefit of his education. Many of these young men became teachers, writers, and publishers, lawyers and ministers – trained for their careers in the sternest of schools – a Maine farm.

"And so today the population of Limington is what it was at the time of incorporation. For the lover of antiquity, suggestive now of this former life are 48 private burying-grounds and five cemeteries, numerous excellent but now inactive small mill-sites, miles of abandoned roads, scores of deserted farmhouses, many with only a cellar to mark their former location.

"But the town, though depopulated, is far from dead. Profits in orcharding are more than fair. The combined yield of three of the largest orchards in town – those of Ralph Weston, Mrs. Katherine McArthur Perkins, and Guy Brackett – for a bumper year would top 50,000 bushels – and there are smaller ones. The progressive poultry farming of such young men as Arthur Libby, Kenneth Edgecomb, Chester Batchelor, and Manley Brackett – Fulton Blake’s thriving dairy business – indicate that the town in its change from general to more specialized farming, may still have something to attract young people.

"For those who return in August (Limington’s 1948 sesquicentennial celebration as well as the academy’s centennial), the old town remains – the village canopied with magnificent elms as they have stood for over 100 years - the elms that may add a touch of melancholy to the scene for those who remember that the town had seen better days.”
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Source – Portland Sunday Telegram and Sunday Press Herald – August 8, 1948.
Population charts are found on each town’s Wikipedia page.

05/24/2026

Revolutionary War Veterans, Early Settlers, and ‘Grass Roots Democracy’

This Memorial Day we remember the men who served in the Revolutionary War, whether for a few months or a few years. Some served along the seacoast of Maine, others marched to points south and west – Boston, Rhode Island, West Point, Ticonderoga, Valley Forge. After the war numerous veterans and their families migrated to Limington. The attached map (also found in an earlier post) indicates the veteran’s land ownership.

Historian Elizabeth Ring speaks to those early years in her 1948 piece shared with local newspapers.

“While the Revolutionary War was being waged elsewhere in the colonies, a battle royal was fought out in the Court of Common Pleas of Sussex, Massachusetts, for the possession of the Ossipee Tract (Limington, Cornish, Parsonsfield, Limerick, Newfield). Unable to settle the cases, appeal was made to the Superior Court where the decision was given to the Ossipee Proprietors, or the Samuel Small heirs.

It was a turbulent first chapter in the history of a town, and the wonder is that no more tail-twisting in town meeting appears to have taken place in Limington than in any other Maine town of the same vintage. The frontier was a great leveler of class, and why not antagonism? The courts had upheld the Ossipee Proprietors. Legally held land was the matrix from which sprung an interest and responsibility in town affairs, expressing both the needs of the individual and the community, inseparably bound together in the fight for survival.

Elected to town offices in the first years of the town were settlers of all factions. Amos Chase and Ezra Davis who were not connected with any proprietorship but came to clear the land before Joshua Small (principal proprietor) arrived, a dozen or so Smalls of both the Samuel Small and Daniel Small faction, Joseph Libby who fought the Smalls hardest in court. All joined to share the responsibilities of incorporation.

These men and scores of others in its early history, served the town in every conceivable way. They perambulated the town line, inventoried the estates, made and improved the roads, built bridges, and served on inspection committees, took care of paupers. They served as sealers of leather, fence viewers, field drivers and hog reeves, cullers of staves, and surveyors of boards and timber. Nothing was too menial. With all the work of clearing and building on their own woodlot in support of a large family, they still had time to work out taxes on roads and bridges, and to attend the endless cycle of town meetings set in motion by the annual meeting, followed by special and adjourned meetings. Voters in Limington, the first year of incorporation, followed the blazed trail to town meetings on five different occasions.

This was grass roots democracy … nor did it stop with the routine business of the government. Early they sought to bring the town to a higher moral level. Starting with an uncut wilderness, the first generation must do all over again the establishment of physical surroundings left behind in the towns from which they had migrated. They must raise their community to the same moral and social level as the town that they had left.”
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This Elizabeth Ring essay was written for the August 8, 1848 edition of the Portland Sunday Telegram and Sunday Press Herald. It was part of a longer article commemorating Limington’s Sesquicentennial and the Academy’s 100th year. During the August weekend celebration, a wreath was laid at the Veteran’s memorial honoring H. B. Emery, Jr.

The Revolutionary War veterans listed either passed through Limington for a time or ended their days in Limington.

05/16/2026

Class of 1902 and Joshua Chamberlain

The following is a transcript from the Friday, May 16, 1902 edition of the Biddeford Weekly Journal.

"The commencement exercises of the class of 1902, Limington Academy, were held on Friday, May 9, at the town hall and were largely attended, notwithstanding it was a cold and uncomfortable day. The order of exercises was as follows-

Music
Prayer
Salutatory, "We Build the Ladder by Which we Rise" Alice F Pillsbury
Oration, "Indolence and Want of Order" Howard S Edgecomb
Music
Class History and Prophesy - Herbert C Durgin
Essay, "Tennyson [is] An Ornate Poet" Caroline P Ilsley
Class Poem, Guy A Brackett
Music
Oration, "Occupation" Herbert E Tufts
Valedictory, "The Instability of Empire" Roy F Brackett
Singing of Class Ode

Oration and conferring of diplomas by Gen, Joshua L. Chamberlain. In the evening a lecture was given by Gen. Chamberlain in the Congregational church, the subject being the 'Battle of Gettysburg,' in which he had an important part, and led the famous charge known in history as the taking of Round Top one of the most brilliant events of the great Civil strife of the 60's.

After the close of this lecture a concert was given in town hall by Givens orchestra of Portland, Maine."

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Our Limington Academy Class of 1902 photo is courtesy of our Pillsbury Collection. Top left is Alice Pillsbury. Other classmates listed but labelled - Caroline Ilsley, Herbert Tufts, Charles Durgin, Roy Brackett, Guy Brackett, Howard Edgecomb. Perhaps descendants can point out their grand.

05/10/2026

In honor of Mother's Day - two Limington settlers
Elizabeth Dam Small (1758-1841)
Hannah Delano Small (1738-1827)

And the stories go something like this.....

In the year 1787, Henry Small and his wife, Elizabeth, went to Limington from Scarborough, and made a farm on the land bought of the Native Americans in 1668 by his great-great-grandfather, Francis Small. Elizabeth and the four little ones, were sheltered in an old hunting-camp near his lot, while Henry felled trees and put up the walls of a log house.

The supplies gave out and he was obliged to go to Portland on foot, more than twenty miles, to renew them. On his return, three days afterward, late at night, what was his consternation and terror to find the camp empty, and no trace of his wife or children. He rushed frantically through the woods and fortunately directed his steps to his new house where he found them quietly sleeping. During his absence Elizabeth had roofed over a part of the cabin with bark, and moved her household goods to their new quarters, and there, a few days later, on a bed of boughs, their son, Humphrey, was born.

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Hannah Delano Small was the wife of a sea captain. Their home was at Cape Elizabeth. " A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep," had no fascination for her. The very sight of the ocean was a reminder of lonely vigils and sad forebodings. As she waited the return of her husband from long voyages, she would clasp her boys more closely to herself and resolve that they should never become sailors. Her presages became so real, and, fearing the effect upon her sons of living within sight and sound of the old ocean, in the absence of her husband, on one of his voyages, she moved her family to the wilderness of Limington. With her own hands she assisted in felling trees and in building the long cabin.

She looked well to the education of her boys. In teaching them writing and arithmetic, she traced the figures and letters upon birch bark by means of a charred stick. " After life's fitful fever she sleeps well," not far from the scenes of her heroic struggles. Her boys grew to a noble, stalwart manhood and her descendants have filled many positions of honor and trust.

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Excerpts are from Helen Coffin Beedy's , "Mother's of Maine," The Thurston Print, 1895. She writes, "I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas told to me."

From Robert Taylor's notes, " This is the Capt. James Small place once located on the road that goes to Camp Mo-Ma-Day-O on Horne Pond. James Small (1734-1812) was a sea captain in the West India Trade. His sons started and operated Small's Mills which became Webster's Mills. We know it now as "the mill pond," the location of the fireworks.

05/01/2026

From the Biddeford Weekly Record, January 26, 1917...

"In January of 1917 Maine Senator Stanley (Oxford) proposed a resolve appropriating $25,000 for each of the years 1917 and 1918 to aid in repairing and constructing a state highway from Westbrook to New Hampshire. The road was to run through Cumberland, York, and Oxford counties, providing a shorter line of travel between Portland and the White Mountain resorts. Approximately 36 miles in length, the route would incorporate road portions already in service as a state aided highway. The length of road would become known as the Ossipee Trail.”

04/19/2026

Louisa Larrabee (1843-1923) was born and raised in Limington Village. Her father, Ebenezer (1810-1891), was a harness maker at their home located a few houses east of the Shaving Hill Road junction with Sokokis Avenue. His shop eventually housed Limington's first library and later was moved to the historical society's property on Joe Webster Road.

In 1870 Louisa married Joseph Ralph "J R" Libby (1845-1917), who started work as a traveling dry-goods salesman. By the early 1880s, J.R. had a department store in Biddeford. In the early 1890s he established a department store on Portland's Congress Street. During the mid-1890s, the Libbys became the second owners of what is now known as the "Victorian Mansion."

Advertisements--
* June 9, 1884 edition of the Biddeford-S**o Journal
* October 31,1892 edition of Portland's Evening Express

Photos --
* J.R. Libby home interior photos, location unknown
* An article from the "Limington News" found within the March 16, 1896 Portland Daily Press

04/10/2026

Melting snow and spring rains raised the level of the S**o and Ossipee Rivers, allowing for easy transit of winter's lumber-work. Annual log drives to the S**o mills continued into the mid 1940s.

These river drivers knew the risks. The August 1924 Biddeford Weekly article is a story of a local man that fell into the river at Salmon Falls and rode the current 200 yards or more through the Indian Cellar gorge. Lawrence Cousin's father, Caleb Cousins (1850-1916), had deep family roots in Limington with family surnames - Cousins, Libby, Sawyer, March, and Marr.