Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1803.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Brownfield’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Brownfield is more historic than 45% of U.S. towns. Its age holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Brownfield’s overall grade.
Maine towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Maine town has 15.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Brownfield’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (10% of Maine towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C− to B. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.3 points). Two sources give 1802.
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Brownfield’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The area was once territory of the Pequawket Abenaki Indians, whose main village was located at what is today Fryeburg. It was granted on January 23, 1764, by the Massachusetts General Court to Captain Henry Young Brown for his services in the French and Indian Wars. Settlement began about 1765. Brown was required to settle 38 families by June 10, 1770, with a minister recruited by three years after that. Unfortunately, a portion of the original grant was found to lie in New Hampshire.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The history of Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, comprising Historical address, by Henry P. Warren1879 · page 22Read the page →
Read the text
2 In 1768 Capt. H. Young Brown, the proprietor of Brownfield, who lived in Pequawkett, told Rev. Paul Coffin, d. d., that there were in Fryeburg and his town (Brownfield) 300 souls, 100 fighting men. This ratio of able bodied men to population, 1 to 3, held good in all the new towns for the first ten years of their liistory. Capt. Brown was an officer in the French war and was a prominent man of his times in western Maine. He owned at one time 23,544 acres of land, all the township of Brownfield.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
Brownfield, decade by decade
4 decades in the archive, from the 1790s to the 1920s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
In 1802, according to Wikidata. Brownfield’s post office opened in 1803, and the first U.S. census counted 146 people here in 1790.
How does Brownfield rank for history?
Brownfield is more historic than 45% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Brownfield?
10% of Brownfield’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.3 points), against a typical 19% for a Maine town; the median home was built in 1987.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (9), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1908
1912
c. 1912
2008
2005
