Place:Yarmouth, Cumberland, Maine, United States

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Yarmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, twelve miles north of the state's largest city, Portland. When originally settled in 1636, as North Yarmouth, it was a district of Massachusetts, and remained as such for 213 years. In 1849, it was incorporated as the Town of Yarmouth, 29 years after Maine's admittance to the Union as the 23rd state.

Yarmouth is part of the Portland–South Portland-Biddeford Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town's population was 8,990 in the 2020 census.

The town's proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, and its location on the banks of the Royal River, which empties into Casco Bay less than one mile away, means it is a prime location as a harbor. Ships were built in Yarmouth's harbor mainly between 1818 and the 1870s, at which point demand declined dramatically. Meanwhile, the Royal River's four waterfalls within Yarmouth, whose Main Street sits about above sea level, resulted in the foundation of almost sixty mills between 1674 and 1931.

The annual Yarmouth Clam Festival attracts around 120,000 people (around fourteen times its population) over the course of the three-day weekend.

History

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North Yarmouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony (as it then was), was settled in 1636, although Native Americans had already been living in the area, calling it Westcustogo. Englishman William Royall (–1676) (for whom the Royal River is named) emigrated to Salem in 1629. After serving seven years in the Massachusetts Bay Colony Company, he was provided with a land grant in North Yarmouth. He purchased a farm there in 1636, becoming one of the first European settlers of the town, along with John Cousins.^[1]

Another Englishman, George Felt, who had emigrated to Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, eleven years earlier, purchased 300 acres of land at Broad Cove from John Phillips, a Welshman, in 1643.^[1]

In 1652, John Cousins sold "sixty acres of lands with fenced fields" to John Maine, from whom the western end of town took the name of Maine's Point.^[2]

The local Native Americans began a "war of extermination", in June 1675, against the settlers who were encroaching on their fishing ground. Lanes Island, the first island at the mouth of the Royal River, was their council ground, and its western end their burial ground. James Lane was the first of their victims, followed the next day by two sons of Mr. Hazelton, who had recently purchased the remaining half of Cousins Island. They were hunting cattle in the woods. Matters progressed. Locally, William Royall's fort was destroyed and the mills were burns. More broadly, King Philip's War (1675–1678) caused settlers to abandon their homes and move south.^[3] After a brief period of peace, the Second Indian War broke out in 1688 and lasted for nine years. This unrest continued periodically until around 1756, ending with the Means massacre at Flying Point.

Around 1715, the third, and the earliest permanent, settlement in Yarmouth began.

In 1722, a "Committee for the Resettlement of North Yarmouth" was formed in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay.

By 1764, 1,098 individuals lived in 154 houses. By 1810, the population was 3,295. During a time of peace, settlement began to relocate along the coast and inland.^[3] The town's Main Street gradually became divided into the Upper Village (also known as the Corner) and Lower Falls, the split roughly located around the present-day U.S. Route 1 overpass (Brickyard Hollow, as it was known). Among the new proprietors at the time were descendants of the Plymouth Pilgrims.^[1]

The Town of Yarmouth was incorporated on .^[1]

Shipbuilding

Maritime activities were important from the beginning of the third settlement. Almost three hundred vessels were launched by Yarmouth's shipyards in the century between 1790 and 1890.

National Register of Historic Places

Twelve properties in Yarmouth are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The oldest (the Cushing and Hannah Prince House) dates from 1785; the "newest" (the Grand Trunk Railway Station) was built in 1906, replacing a structure built in 1848. They are ranked in chronological order below.

• Cushing and Hannah Prince House, 189 Greely Road
• North Yarmouth and Freeport Baptist Meeting House, 3 Hillside Street
• Ammi Mitchell House, 333 Main Street
• Russell Hall, North Yarmouth Academy, 141 Main Street
• Academy Hall, North Yarmouth Academy, 129 Main Street
• Capt. S. C. Blanchard House, 317 Main Street
• Captain Reuben Merrill House, 233 West Main Street
• First Universalist Church, 97 Main Street
• First Parish Congregational Church, 116 Main Street
• Camp Hammond, 275 Main Street
• Cousins Island Chapel, 414 Cousins Street
• Grand Trunk Railway Station, 288 Main Street

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