Our ser­vice area covers most of Somerset County. For infor­ma­tion about any of the towns we serve, click below.

Anson

Anson, for­merly known as Plan­ta­tion Num­ber One in Som­er­set County, was incor­po­rated on March 1, 1798. Set­tled in 1772, it was named for British Lord George Anson. Dur­ing the 19th cen­tury it ceded land to Indus­try (1823) and New Port­land (1830), and annexed land from Emb­den (1828) and New Vine­yard (1840).

It has been known as Brook­field, Seven Mile Brook Plan­ta­tion, and Tit­comb Town. North Anson, now a vil­lage in the town, was briefly a sep­a­rate town by that name between 1845 and 1855. The rocky Carrabas­sett River flows through North Anson to the Ken­nebec River in Madison.

Dur­ing the mid-​twentieth cen­tury many res­i­dents in Anson vil­lage (in the south), espe­cially those near the Ken­nebec River, worked in the Madi­son paper mills. The twelve o’clock whis­tle not only sig­naled lunch time for the work­ers, but was a marker for life in town, includ­ing moth­ers admon­ish­ing chil­dren to be home when the whis­tle blows.

The town office lies near the bridge to Madi­son in Anson vil­lage. The upper floors were once used for min­strel shows, com­mu­nity events, and town meet­ings. It was also the bas­ket ball court for the ele­men­tary school in the 1950’s.

Bene­dict Arnold’s trail to Que­bec cuts through the town in Anson vil­lage along the Kennebec.

Pop­u­la­tion: 2,496
Phone: (207) 696−3979

Athens

Set­tled by Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War sol­diers, this town in Som­er­set County was incor­po­rated on March 7, 1804. In 1821 it annexed land from Hart­land, and later from Brighton in 1838 and 1862. Som­er­set Acad­emy, the early edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tion, now acts as the town office, the Amer­i­can Legion hall, and a Chris­t­ian Fel­low­ship meet­ing place.

Athens is adjoined by Solon, which was incor­po­rated five years later. As Ava Chad­bourne put it, When Athens was incor­po­rated the name of the cap­i­tal of ancient Greece was cho­sen for it by its inhab­i­tants. At the incor­po­ra­tion of Solon, the name selected was that of one of the seven sages of Greece. Some lovers of ancient Greece and its law­givers must have lived in this lit­tle town in Maine. It had a Greek Revival style meet­ing house at one point. The Union Meet­ing­house, not a Greek Revival style, has served the com­mu­nity since 1840.

As have many rural com­mu­ni­ties, Athens has hosted a small agri­cul­tural fair for many years, includ­ing ani­mal pulling con­tests, 4-​H and other exhibits vying for blue rib­bons, and a social gath­er­ing just after har­vest time.

The main vil­lage in the town is north of Skowhe­gan fol­low­ing Route 150 to the junc­tion with state routes 43 and 151. It is located at the fork of the East and West branches of Wesserun­sett Stream, which joins the Ken­nebec River just below Skowhegan.

Pop­u­la­tion: 1,019
Phone: (207) 654−3471

Canaan

Canaan is a town in Som­er­set County, incor­po­rated on June 18, 1788, though sig­nif­i­cant set­tle­ment began in 1803 when mills were erected on Wesserun­set Stream.

Var­i­ously known as Hey­wood­stown, Howard’s Town, plan­ta­tion of Wesserun­set, and Old Canaan, it once included the area now encom­pass­ing the town of Skowhe­gan. In 1814 it set off land to the new town of Bloom­field; in 1823 more land was ceded to form the Town of Mil­burn. Milburn’s name was later change to Skowhe­gan and that town even­tu­ally annexed Bloomfield.

The vil­lage is served by the Carrabas­sett Stream and by Maine Route 23 and U.S. Route 2. Lake George and Sib­ley Pond are pop­u­lar sum­mer and ice-​fishing attractions.

In an area of dimin­ished eco­nomic activ­ity, its 23 per­cent pop­u­la­tion growth in the 1990–2000 decade is impressive.

Pop­u­la­tion: 2,327
Phone: (207) 474−8976

Cornville

Cornville is a town in Som­er­set County, incor­po­rated on Feb­ru­ary 24, 1798 from the unor­ga­nized town­ship of T2 R1, N.P.C., E.K.R. After acquir­ing the Mile and a half Strip in 1807, it con­ceded land in sev­eral trans­ac­tions in the 1830’s to Mil­burn to reach its cur­rent boundaries.

Orig­i­nally called Bernad­stown No. 3 after Moses Bernard who pur­chased it from Mass­a­chu­setts, it gained its per­ma­nent name from the rich­ness and pro­duc­tiv­ity of its soil, espe­cially for Indian corn. Early white set­tlers arrived in the mid-1790’s, attracted by the abil­ity to pur­chase large tracts of land in the Maine wilderness.

By the dawn of the nine­teenth cen­tury, sev­eral mills and a tan­nery were estab­lished on the Wesserun­set River.

Just north of Skowhe­gan on Maine Route 150, Cornville is a grow­ing com­mu­nity in a rural setting.

Pop­u­la­tion: 1,343
Phone: (207) 474−3275

Embden

Emb­den is a town in Som­er­set County, incor­po­rated on June 22, 1804 from the unor­ga­nized town­ship of T1 R2.

Emb­den was also known as Emden, Queen­stown, and Wind­sor. The lat­ter two names appar­ently reflected the loy­al­ist sym­pa­thies of the early set­tlers. Accord­ing to one account, the set­tlers’ peti­tion to form a town sug­gested the name Wind­sor, though it was stricken from the pro­posal and replaced with Emden. The b was added in the early town records and became the accepted form.

Emb­den Pond, in the shadow of Dun­bar Hill, dom­i­nates the north­west por­tion of the town.

Indian & Fowl Meadow Islands, nature pre­serves in the upper Ken­nebec, are flooded reg­u­larly, giv­ing them dis­tinc­tive flora includ­ing lush ferns and wild­flow­ers in the spring. Migrant water­fowl rest here near evi­dence of old log­ging drives.

Pop­u­la­tion: 957
Phone: (207) 566−5058

Madison

Madi­son is a town in Som­er­set County, incor­po­rated March 7, 1804. In 1846 it ceded land to Norridgewock.

Father Sebas­t­ian Rasle arrived in 1695 in the Old Point area, liv­ing with and min­is­ter­ing to the Indi­ans there until he was killed by the British in 1724. He built the first church in the town.

Named for Pres­i­dent James Madi­son, it was sur­veyed in 1791 and per­ma­nent white set­tlers arrived at least be 1775.

The Lake­wood Sum­mer The­ater, opened in 1901 in East Madi­son, on the west side of Lake Wesserun­sett. On the east side in the vil­lage of East Madi­son, a dam hints at its his­tory as a mill site.

Pop­u­la­tion: 4,848
Phone: (207) 696-3971

Mercer

Mer­cer is a town in Som­er­set County incor­po­rated on June 22, 1804 from Indus­try Plantation.

First set­tled in the early-1780’s, it was named for Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War Brigadier-​General Hugh Mercer.

With forty-​one res­i­dents in 1800, Mer­cer exploded to a pop­u­la­tion of 1,432 by 1840. Soon there­after, Maine’s first starch fac­tory was estab­lished soon to be fol­lowed by another, which joined the saw, grist, shin­gle, and joiner’s mills and a tannery.

The Con­gre­ga­tional Meet­ing­house, which still stands, was ded­i­cated on June 11, 1829. How­ever, the Methodist Vestry, built in 1860, was destroyed by fire in 1901. Recon­structed almost imme­di­ately, the new struc­ture was restored to look exactly like the original.

The town lies on U.S. Route 2 just west of Nor­ridge­wock with frontage on North Pond at its south­east corner.

Pop­u­la­tion: 687
Phone: (207) 587−2911

Norridgewock

The Town of Nor­ridge­wock is located in south­west­ern Som­er­set County, on the west­ern bound­ary of Skowhe­gan and 15 miles north­west of Waterville.

The com­mer­cial down­town area is sit­u­ated roughly in the cen­ter of town, on the Ken­nebec River and at the junc­tion of U.S. 201A and U.S. 2.

The Cen­tral Maine Regional Air­port (gen­eral avi­a­tion) is located in the west­ern part of town.

The town cov­ers roughly 50 square miles.

Pop­u­la­tion: 3,396
Phone: (207) 634−2252

Skowhegan

Nes­tled in the heart of the pic­turesque Ken­nebec River Val­ley sits the town of Skowhe­gan. Set­tled in 1773, it’s brim­ming with Amer­i­can His­tory yet is host to mod­ern busi­nesses such as SAPPI Fine Paper, New Bal­ance Shoe, Howard P. Fair­field, and Red­ing­ton Fairview Gen­eral Hospital.

Aerial photo of Skowhegan, MaineSkowhe­gan is also nation­ally known as the home of Sen­a­tor Mar­garet Chase Smith, the first woman U.S. Sen­a­tor. The Mar­garet Chase Smith Library houses the Senator’s mem­o­ra­bilia and serves as a museum and edu­ca­tional cen­ter on her life and career.

Down­town Skowhe­gan, a Main­street Maine Com­mu­nity, is watched over by the world’s largest sculp­tured Indian… a 62 ft. giant crafted by the renowned sculp­tor Bernard Langlais of Cushing.

When Colonel Bene­dict Arnold set out in 1775 to take Que­bec from the British, he and his troops trav­eled along the water­ways through Skowhe­gan, and a bronze tablet on the island in the cen­ter of town marks their route. Now, as then, Skowhegan’s com­mer­cial and indus­trial devel­op­ment has always revolved around the river gorge that runs through the downtown.

One of the future projects for Skowhe­gan is the cre­ation of a white water pad­dling facil­ity in the gorge. This facil­ity will host white water pad­dling events dur­ing the year and will be the cor­ner stone of expanded use of the Ken­nebec River for recre­ation in the region.

Located at the junc­tion of US Rte. 2 and Rte.201, and only thir­teen miles from Inter­state 95, we are eas­ily acces­si­ble to every­one, come and visit, come and stay!

Pop­u­la­tion: 8,584
Phone: (207) 474−6902

Smithfield

Smith­field is a rural and sea­sonal com­mu­nity of under 1,000, located in the south­west­ern cor­ner of Som­er­set County.

Smith­field Vil­lage, a small com­mer­cial and resort set­tle­ment, is approx­i­mately 13 miles west of Waterville.

Sea­sonal hous­ing stock in Smith­field rep­re­sents about 40 per­cent of the total, clus­tered around North Pond and East Pond.

There are no arte­r­ial roads in Smith­field. The town cov­ers 20 square miles.

Pop­u­la­tion: 1041
Phone: (207) 362−4772

Solon

Solon is a town in Som­er­set County, incor­po­rated on Feb­ru­ary 23, 1809 from the town­ship T1 R2 EKR.

Set­tled in 1782 by William Hilton of Wis­cas­set, it was named for one of the great sages of Ancient Greece, in keep­ing with its neigh­bor­ing town of Athens.

A sub­stan­tial num­ber of Indian arti­facts, includ­ing pot­tery, knife blades, pro­jec­tile points, and fire pits, have been dis­cov­ered at an appar­ent camp site near the Ken­nebec River.

Just below Caratunk Falls at Arnold’s Land­ing, Bene­dict Arnold and his army camped on Octo­ber 7, 1775 before car­ry­ing their boats around the falls.

Solon is located at the junc­tion of U.S. Route 201, 201A, and Maine Route 8. The Solon Hotel is a land­mark at the vil­lage center.

The South Solon Meet­ing House is a period piece well pre­served, with col­or­ful murals depict­ing reli­gious themes on the walls.

Pop­u­la­tion: 1,061
Phone: (207) 643−2541