Most of Edinburg was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1989. Below: maps from 1917 on and the census since 1840.
Edinburg was undoubtedly named for the Scottish city Edinburgh, and probably by Scotsman John Bennoch, an early settler of nearby Orono who built a road between that town and Medford, Maine, in 1826 which ran through what is now Edinburg. The town was incorporated in 1835, and by 1843 it had 52 residents, 23 of them children. By 1859 the population was 93.
Corp. Asbury F. Haynes of the 17th Maine Regiment, who was born in Edinburg in 1842, captured the Confederate battle flag at the Battle of Sayler's Creek in Virginia, April 6, 1865, an action which won him the Medal of Honor. He lived until 1931 and is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.
Passages that mention Edinburg, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 398Read the page →
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square miles, or between twenty-five and thirty thousand acres. It is fifteen miles due north of Bangor, and five miles from the Penobscot River on the south line of Edinburg. The Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad runs for nearly six miles in this town, entering from Alton not quite two miles from the southwest corner of Lagrange, running west of north to South Lagrange Station and post-office, about threb-fourths of a mile from the south
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History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 398Read the page →
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square miles, or between twenty-five and thirty thousand acres. It is fifteen miles due north of Bangor, and five miles from the Penobscot River on the south line of Edinburg. The Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad runs for nearly six miles in this town, entering from Alton not quite two miles from the southwest corner of Lagrange, running w£st of north to South Lagrange Station and post-ofifice, about three-fourths of a mile from the south
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History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 340Read the page →
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Edinburg is chiefly an agricultural town, so far as developed ; but there is still some lumbering done, and at least one saw-mill is kept going in the town.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Edinburg, 1835 to 2020
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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). How TownRatings grades history →
From 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.
