Most of Maxfield was built recently: 4% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1999. Below: maps from 1947 on and the census since 1830.
Maxfield was incorporated in 1824 from a portion of the Bridgton Academy Grant.
In the early 1890s, Maxfield was within the range of a giant (400 pound) wild black bear named "Old Ranger", who was eventually shot and killed by a local hunting party after a lifetime of raiding orchards, and having survived numerous other attempts to do him in. According to a New York Sun obituary of Old Ranger, "the whole of Penobscot County knew the bear, and he defied the entire population."
In December 2025, Maxfield town council voted in favor of dissolving the town into unorganized territory.
Passages that mention Maxfield, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 420Read the page →
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Maxfield has a fair population for a small interior and distant town, and has sensibly increased it even within the last eleven years. It is mainly on the south river road, running from Howland up the Piscataquis, about three miles of it in this town, and on the Bunker Hill or stage-road into Lagrange. This leaves the river road soon after it enters Maxfield, and runs with some zigzags southwesterly across the angle of Howland into Lagrange,
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History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 619Read the page →
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dumkeag and Lincoln was devastated. The towns upon the Piscataquis suffered from loss of buildings, cattle, fences, crops. The house, bain filled with hay, and store and tool-house of Joseph Mcintosh, of Maxfield, were burned and the family driven to the river for safety. Other houses and barns, and saw-mills and grist-mills, were destroyed. A lad returning from school through the woods was so badly burned tliat his life was despaired
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History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 619Read the page →
Read the text
dumkeag and Lincoln was devastated. The towns upon the Piscataquis suffered from loss of buildings, cattle, fences, crops. The house, barn filled with hay, and store and tool-house of Joseph Mcintosh, of Maxfield, were burned and the family driven to the river for safety. Other houses and barns, and saw-mills and grist-mills, were destroyed. A lad returning from school, through the woods was so badly burned that his life was despaired
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 420Read the page →
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tem of liberal land-grants, to aid in the support of the academy at Bridgton, in Cumberland county, this State, which institution was incorporated in March, 1808. It was wholly within the present limits of Maxfield, and amounted to eleven thousand acres. About the year 1817 the tract was bought in a body by Mr, Joseph Mcintosh, formerly of Hingham, Massachusetts.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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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, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) 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.
