Eliot, Maine
Eliot is a town in York County, Maine, United States. Originally settled in 1623, it was formerly a part of Kittery, to its east. After Kittery, it is the next most southern town in the state of Maine, lying on the Piscataqua River across from Portsmouth and Newington, New Hampshire. The population was 6,717 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. Eliot is home to Ambush Rock, Green Acre, and the Raitt Homestead Farm Museum. History Founding Today's town of Eliot was formerly the Middle Parish of the town Kittery, Maine, originally part of the royal grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges known as the Piscataqua Plantation. Kittery was incorporated in 1647, today distinguishing itself as "the oldest incorporated town in Maine." While this may be so, settlements upriver on the north side of the Piscataqua River in today's Eliot were established considerably earlier, owing to more favorable conditions for harborage, timber, and shipbuilding. This is the basis for Eliot maintaining it was "settled" almost a quarter century earlier in 1623. In 1659 the local court decreed that there should be two meeting houses in Kittery. The town's inhabitants disagreed, and held a