Eliot, Maine
Eliot is a town in York County, Maine, United States. Originally settled in 1623, it was formerly a part of Kittery, to its east. After Kittery, it is the next most southern town in the state of Maine, lying on the Piscataqua River across from Portsmouth and Newington, New Hampshire. The population was 6,717 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. Eliot is home to Ambush Rock, Green Acre, and the Raitt Homestead Farm Museum. History Founding Today's town of Eliot was formerly the Middle Parish of the town Kittery, Maine, originally part of the royal grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges known as the Piscataqua Plantation. Kittery was incorporated in 1647, today distinguishing itself as "the oldest incorporated town in Maine." While this may be so, settlements upriver on the north side of the Piscataqua River in today's Eliot were established considerably earlier, owing to more favorable conditions for harborage, timber, and shipbuilding. This is the basis for Eliot maintaining it was "settled" almost a quarter century earlier in 1623. In 1659 the local court decreed that there should be two meeting houses in Kittery. The town's inhabitants disagreed, and held a town meeting on July 17, 1660, where it was: ...Agreed and fully consented unto that this town of Kittery is by free consent divided into three parts for settling of three ministers, one in the east part as followeth, one at Nichewancick [today's Berwick] which bound ae to come doown unto Thompson point brook formerly called the black Brook and from that Brook the second division is to go downward to the great cove below Thos. Spinney's Point and the third division to go down from the great cove unto Brave Boat Harbor with Capt. Champernown Island, all of which three divisions according as they are divided each division to bear their own charges for the maintenance of their own minister. The Upper Parish, then known as the Parish of Unity, later became the town of Berwick (incorporated in 1713), with the uppermost part of Kittery along the Piscataqua becoming the Upper Parish. Left without a meeting house or minister, the residents of a newly created Middle Parish between the Upper and Lower along the river between it and Spinney's Cove [Great Cove] were permitted by order of the court to attend church across the Piscataqua in either the towns of Dover, New Hampshire or Portsmouth for one-half their going rates. Prior to Eliot's incorporation as a town on March 1, 1810, the Upper Parish had been in conflict with Kittery's other parishes since at least 1791. In 1791, the parish's minister died. His successor, according to a large faction of the parish's inhabitants, was a man of "unfair character" imposed by "a small party" of people. He was rejected by "a large majority", and a new minister was installed in 1792. The internal strife between inhabitants didn't stop there. The minority faction, angered by the removal of their minister,