Dexter, ME

Dexter is a Penobscot County town built around the East Branch of the Sebasticook River. Ebenezer Small, David Smith, and other settlers from New Hampshire arrived in 1801, when the place was called Elkinstown; incorporation came in 1816, with the new name honoring Massachusetts judge Samuel Dexter. The river supplied the falls and waterpower that drove Dexter’s early mills. A gristmill opened at the falls in 1818, and woolen mills followed, giving the town an industrial history that still shows up in the Dexter Historical Society’s museum complex. Lake Wassookeag feeds the river, which carries Dexter’s water south into the Kennebec watershed.