Sagadahoc County, Maine
Bath is the seat of Sagadahoc County, the smallest - physical size-wise - county in Maine. It had been a part of the larger Lincoln County until 1854, when Bath and 9 other communities, all but two fronting the Kennebec River, separated. Not surprisingly, these communities all have a rich maritime history, but also one associated with farming and mills.
Sagadahoc (click for pronounciation) is the Wabanaki word for the mouth of what we now call the Kennebec River, or “where the river pours into the sea.” In historical nomenclature, it was often Anglicized and spelled Sagadahock. The other communities in Sagadahoc County are: West Bath, Phippsburg, Georgetown, Arrowsic, Woolwich, Richmond, Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, and Topsham. (Also there is an unincorporated area named Perkins, aka Swan Island.)
You can read a little bit about each community and the county here on Bath’s Patten Free Library’s website.
On our downtown walking tour, we talk about Sagadahoc County’s inception at a point where we have a nice view of the County Courthouse at the top of Centre Street hill. The way I figure, Bath in the 1850s was at its height as a shipping and shipbuilding behemoth - we needed our own courthouse to settle the inevitable disputes that arise in big business. The 1869 Francis Fassett designed brick Italiante with brown stone details is a gem of our city.
If you look on a modern road map of the area, you might be surprised to learn Brunswick (in Cumberland County) is not in Sagadahoc County. That’s because the County lines were drawn when the primary mode of transportation was by boat. This map and this one nicely show how these boundaries would have made sense in 1854.
Image Source: Family Search
Note in the map at left that Topsham (along with Bowdoin, Bowdoinham and Richmond) is on the west side of the Kennebec, but abuts the Androscoggin River, which runs by Lewiston, Lisbon and Lisbon Falls, Maine.
Some of these communities received increased attention after the October 2023 massacre in Lewiston, Maine because the suspect left his car at an Androscoggin River boat ramp in nearby Lisbon Falls. This raised speculation that he had escaped by boat. Communities in Northern Sagadahoc County were under a shelter in place order while the suspect was still at large.
The suspect was later found dead not far from the boat ramp in Lisbon Falls, 10 miles from Lewiston, just across the Androscoggin River from Sagadahoc County.
