According to Saco Valley Settlements by G. T Ridlon, Sr. Limington was formed
from a tract of land purchased from the Newichawannock Indian tribe under the
leadership of Captain Sunday by Francis Small of Kittery in 1766 for "two
blankets, two pounds of powder, four pounds of musket balls, twenty strings of
beads and two gallons of rum".
The
land was originally known as Ossapee became Little Ossipee Plantation and
stretched from the Newichawannock and Little Ossipee rivers to the Great Ossipee
and Saco Rivers. It was about 20 miles square.
The
first settler was Deacon Amos Chase who built a cabin near a waterfall and put
up the town's first mill. Other early settlers include: Jonathan Boothby in
1774, John MacArthur, a native of Scotland in 1775. Joshua Small, the original
purchaser, came about the same time.
Little Ossipee Plantation became incorporated as the town of Limington in 1792.
The following transcription of the 1790 Census shows 120 families consisting of
662 people living in what was then still Little Ossipee.
