| In pre-colonial times, the land now
occupied by Aroostook County was inhabited by the Micmacs and
the Maliseets, bands of which still reside in the area.
French explorers, led by Samuel de Champlain and Sieur de Monts,
first visited the area in 1604, but the area was not settled
until much later.
The first settlers arrived in the
Aroostook River area during a border dispute between the United
States and Great Britain. They settled on property claimed by
both sides. When Maine was admitted to the Union in 1820,
a large part of what was to become Aroostook County still
belonged to Massachusetts.
In 1837, Maine became the only state to
declare war unilaterally when its legislature
declared war against Canada and
dispatched an army of 200 to what is now Aroostook County.
Eventually the U.S. Congress appropriated funds and raised
10,000 militia to defend its borders against the British. The
Webster-Ashburton treaty, adopted in 1842, settled the dispute
without bloodshed and fixed the border between Maine and New
Brunswick.
Source: Varney, George J., Gazetteer of the
State of Maine. Boston: B. B. Russell, 1886. |
