Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 44% of U.S. towns · #132 of 143 in Maine. What drives it
Most of Hermon was built recently: 4% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 2000. Its Register listing is the District #5 School House. Below: 3 old photos and papers, maps from 1902 on, and the census since 1820.
The Hermon post office opened in 1834, the earliest record of the town by name. Five smaller post offices, North Hermon (1844), Herman Pond (1856) and Hermon Center (1872), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 44% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Hermon is more historic than 44% of U.S. towns, #132 of 143 in Maine. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
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 Hermon’s 1.5 sits below most of its state (20% of Maine towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: the first post office (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 →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Hermon had its own post office from 1834 to 1919. Five other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Hermon’s history is told.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Hermon. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Hermon.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Hermon yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Hermon is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 6,461 at the 2020 census.
Its first post office opened in 1834. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 5,416 to 6,461 (+19%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Hermon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
there, and goes northeast to and through Hermon village to a road from Bangor to Glenburn, across the northeast angle of the town,- where, at a point a little below North • Hermon post-office, it ends. Another partial diagonal of the town, passing to the northwest from two branches starting respectively from Hampden and Bangor, and uniting something more than a mile from the south and east hnes of Hermon, also passes through Hermon post-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
It enters about three-fourths of a mile below the exit of 3S the Sowadabscook Stream into Hermon, crosses that water at a mile's distance, runs thence north of west to the depot near Carmel post-office, and on northwesterly by the hamlet known as Damascus (which has no postoffice), to its departure into Etna, close by the bank of Parker Pond. A little more than a mile south of its
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
It enters about three-foarths of a mile below the exit of 35 the Sowadabscook Stream into Hermon, crosses that water at a mile's distance, runs thence north of west to the depot near Carmel post-office, and on northwesterly by the hamlet known as DanMscus (which has no postoffice), to its departure into Etna, close by the bank of Parker Pond. A little more than a mile south of its
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
tion in the town. At School No. 7, near the southwest corner of Kenduskeag, it crosses a northeast and southwest road from Kenduskeag post-office southwest and south by School No. 1 to Hermon. At Levant postoffice it is crossed by another road having just at the village the same general direction as that just mentioned, but which runs around from the former at School No. 7, by a route north of the Little Kenduskeag, which it
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveBAR 33 SW9 at Northern Maine Jct., located in Hermon, ME July 1985One decade in the archive so far: the 1980s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Hermon’s page.
Retake this view · +15The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Grew from 266 people in 1820 to 6,461 in 2020, more than tenfold.
21 censuses, 1820–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Hermon’s Wikipedia page.
Nobody well known was born in Hermon itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Hermon post office opened in 1834, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Hermon is more historic than 44% of U.S. towns, #132 of 143 in Maine. 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.
One place: the District #5 School House (listed 1997).
4% of Hermon’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.7 points), against a typical 19% for a Maine town; the median home was built in 2000.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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 (5), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
1985
1985
2026
2010