Sangerville is situated midway of the southern border of Piscataquis County, adjacent to Dover on the west. On the north is Guilford, Parkman forms the western boundary, and on the south is Dexter in Penobscot County. The Bangor and Piscataquis Railway passes near the northern boundary of the town, having a station about 7 miles from that in Dover. North-west and Center ponds are the largest bodies of water within the town, and the Piscataquis River forms its northern boundary. The area of S;angerville is 24,216 acres. The surface is somewhat hilly, and so elevated between the waters of the Kennebec and Penobscot that the water of its three ponds find the ocean through both these streams. The rock is limestone and slate. There is less waste land than usual in town, most being good upland, with few stones, and easily cultivated. The principal centres of business are Sangerville village, East Sangerville and Brockway’s Mills. At the first, on the outlet of North-west Pond, are a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a tannery, and two woollen mills. The latter employ each near 50 hands, paying out some ten or twelve hundred dollars monthly. On the outlet of Center Pond, at Brockway’s Mills, are two mills for large and small lumber; and on the outlet of Black Stream, which enters the town from Dover, are a saw-mill and shingle machine and a grist-mill. It was on this stream tbat the first grist-mill in town was built by Phineas Ames, the first settler. He made an opening as early as 1801 or 1802, and moved in his family in the autumn ot 1803. James Waymouth was the next settler, and Jesse Brockway the third. The proprietor of the township was Col. Calvin Sanger, of Sherborn, Mass., who purchased three-fourths of it as early as 1800, and the remainder soon after. Eben Stevens came in 1805; in 1806 William Farnham moved his family in from Norridgewock. Mr. Farnham lived on the south side of Pond Hill, where he started the business of tanning. He brought young apple trees from Garland on his shoulders, and planted the first orchard in town. Among later settlers were Walter Leland, Samuel MeLanathan, Enoch Adams, Eleazer Woodward, Guy Carleton and Apollos Pond. Carleton and Dudley commenced operations where Sangerville village now stands in 1812 or 1813, building there a saw-mill and a grist-mill; and in 1816 Carleton started a carding machine, the first in the Piscataquis valley. The township was first called Amestown, after the earliest settler, but in 1814 it was incorporated as Sangerville, in honor of the principal proprietor. Elder William Oakes was the youngest of several brothers who came to this town. Soon after Elder Macomber organized the Baptist church, Mr. Oakes was licensed to preach. A noted event in the history of the town is the loss of Daniel Ames’ child. No trace of the lost one was ever found, though the entire male population searched for it more or less for days. Some months later a tramp was found carrying a child which he claimed as his own, but it was claimed and taken from him by the bereaved parents, though in several particulars it differed from the one they had lost. Mr. Appleford, the tramp, was prosecuted by the selectmen of the town, but witnesses providentially at the trial vindicated the old man, and his child was restored to him, to the great satisfaction of both. The question of the disappearance was never satisfactorially answered. There is a Union meeting-house at the village, and another at Lane’s Corner. A bell has been presented to the first by Mr. Cotton Brown, a wealthy farmer and a old resident. The town has a Baptist, Free Baptist and a Methodist society. Sangerville has nine public schoolhouses, valued at $3,50O. The valuation of estates in 1870 was $316,590. In 1880 it was $291,603. The population in the same year was 1,140.

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