Immigrant Communities

The story of immigrant communities in Aroostook County began taking organized form in the nineteenth century. Even before planned colonies took root, Irish-born immigrant Michael Russell settled along the Aroostook River around 1823, building a home and providing portage near Aroostook Falls to become an early permanent resident of Fort Fairfield. In 1834, Boston Bishop Benedict Fenwick purchased Township 2, Range 5 in southern Aroostook to build an Irish Catholic agrarian colony and college. Early settlers like Nicholas Broderick, Timothy Dorsey, Martin Qualey, Philip Finnegan, and John Nullmore began arriving that year, followed later by Francis Smith and larger waves starting in 1838. They established potato farms and founded St. Benedict's parish in what officially incorporated as Benedicta on June 29, 1873.

To counter the out-migration of Maine farmers to the West, the State authorized a planned settlement effort in 1870, appointing William Widgery Thomas Jr. as Commissioner of Immigration. On July 23, 1870, Thomas arrived in Township 15 Range 3 with 51 Swedish men, women, and children to clear the forest and establish New Sweden. They built the Capitolium that autumn as an administrative hall, reception center, school, storehouse, and church, while introducing Scandinavian farming methods, potato cultivation, and the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church. Swedish settlement soon expanded into Westmanland in 1879 and Stockholm in 1881. Across the border, Scottish immigrant William Linton Duncan crossed the Atlantic in 1873 with the Scotch Colony before relocating to run a farm in Washburn.

Agricultural migration continued to shape local towns over a century later. Seeking affordable farmland and religious isolation, Old Order Amish families migrated from Ohio to Smyrna Mills in 1996, creating Maine's earliest enduring Amish settlement with traditional horse-powered farms, woodworking, metalworking, greenhouses, and a general store. In August 2007, Amish settlers including craftsman and dairy farmer Noah Yoder relocated from northern New York to Fort Fairfield along Forest Avenue, expanding traditional family-run orchards, workshops, and dairy farms across Easton and central Aroostook. By 2011, another Amish community took root around Sherman and Island Falls, establishing traditional farms and produce stands.