District of Maine
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The District of Maine was a legal designation for what is now the U.S. state of Maine from American independence until March 4, 1820, when it gained its independence from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and became the 23rd state in the Union.
As divided by the Continental Congress in 1778, the District of Maine was the northernmost of three districts in Massachusetts. At the time, the district was composed of York, Cumberland and Lincoln Counties, the area having been York County, Massachusetts until the creation of Cumberland and Lincoln in 1760. (By statehood, the state had added Hancock, Kennebec, Oxford, Penobscot, Somerset and Washington Counties.)
After 1677, when the Province of Maine was sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony for the sum of £1250 (and later incorporated into the territory of the Province of Massachusetts Bay) and prior to the district's organization in 1778, the area was known as the Province of Maine of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
External link
- Willis, William, History of Portland, 1865. (Ch. 24: Separation of Maine from Massachusetts) (http://www.usigs.org/library/books/me/Portland1865/Portland024.htm)