Editing Ashland, Maine (section)

==History==

For thousands of years, [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes inhabited this region.

In the 1830s William Dalton became the first Euro-American to establish residency at the site of the future town.<ref name="History of Aroostook">{{cite book|last=Wiggin|first=Edward|title=History of Aroostook, Vol. I, Comprising Facts, Names, and Dates Relating to the Early Settlement of all the Different Towns and Plantations of the County|date=1922|publisher=Star Herald Press|location=Presque Isle, Maine|page=67|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t7pn97p4p;view=1up;seq=75|access-date=December 29, 2016}}</ref><ref name=Gazetteer>{{cite book|last=Hellmann|first=Paul T.|title=Historical Gazetteer of the United States|date=2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=1135948593|pages=445–446|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=REtEXQNWq6MC&pg=PA445}}</ref>  The community was organized as a plantation in 1840,<ref name=Gazetteer /> at which time there were 40 heads of household listed.<ref name="1840 Census">{{cite web|title=Range 5 Township 11, Aroostook, Maine|url=http://ancestry.com|work=Sixth Census of the United States, 1840|publisher=Ancestry.com|access-date=May 14, 2014}}</ref>
It was incorporated as a town in 1862, under the name of Ashland.  From 1869 to 1876 the town was renamed "Dalton," but then reverted to its historic and current name.<ref name=Gazetteer /> The town grew geographically in size when Sheridan Plantation, which had been organized in 1878 to the north of Ashland, was annexed by Ashland in 1901 to form its present boundaries.<ref name="Maine: An Encyclopedia">{{cite web|title=Ashland|url=http://maineanencyclopedia.com/ashland/|website=Maine: An Encyclopedia|date=August 12, 2011|access-date=December 16, 2016}}</ref>

The town of Ashland was located on the nineteenth-century stage route from [[Patten, Maine|Patten]] to [[Fort Kent, Maine|Fort Kent]].
In the nineteenth-century logging was the main industry.  The lumber industry was at a peak about 1915,<ref name=Gazetteer /> although some continues to the present.
[[File:Russell Camp Maine.jpg|thumb|Russell Camp Maine {{circa|1900}}]]