About
[BUK-field] is a town in Oxford County, incorporated on March 16, 1793 from Bucktown Plantation, also known as Plantation Number 5. According to the Town Report of 1977, the first settlers were Nathaniel Buck, presumably the town’s namesake, Benjamin Spaulding, Simon Record, and Thomas Allen.
The 1886 Gazetteer of Maine notes
The Buckfield and Rumford Railroad passes through the the town in a nearly north and south course, having a station at Buckfield Village.
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The manufactures of the town are long lumber, shingles, staves, box-boards, flour and meal, shovel-handles, hand-sleds, drag-rakes, brushes and brush blocks, powder-keags, leather, harnesses, cutting-blocks, men’s boots, etc. Buckfield Village is the principal centre, not only for this but for several adjacent towns.
The picturesque, but apparently inadequate, 1881 Roundabout Bridge, over the Nezinscot River, was replaced in 1977 by the standard steel structure found throughout the state. The river is sometimes the choice for people seeking a scenic, moderately challenging canoe trip from Buckfield to Turner. The Bridge House in the village hugs the right bank, with rapids above and flat water below the nearby bridge.
Buckfield village is compact, having within a few hundred yards of its center the public library, two veterans memorials, the Masonic Temple, the Odd Fellows Building, the Post Office, and a general store. A short distance away is the Community Church, the Community Center and Town Offices, and the Fire Department.
Buckfield is home to Wells Wood Turning & Finishing, a firm that has supplied the White House annual Easter Egg Roll with thousands of colorful souvenir wooden eggs, one for each participating child.
This apple growing community lies at the junction of the east and west branches of the Nezinscot River between Turner and South Paris on Maine Route 117. Gain an insight to the community’s issues by viewing the 1978 Town Warrant.
Form of Government: Town Meeting-Select Board-Manager.
