New Sweden,Maine

[NEW SWEE-dehn] is a town in Aroostook County, incorporated on January 29, 1895 from New Sweden Plantation, itself organized in 1876 from township T15 R3 WELS.

After the Civil War, Maine, like other states, was losing population to the great westward migration. A conscious public policy, enacted into law in 1870, of encouraging Swedish immigration resulted in the very successful settlement of Swedes in New Sweden and nearby Stockholm beginning in 1870. Land was allocated to settlers by the State’s Land Agent and reports of the Swedish Colony’s progress were reported in 1870 by the Board of Immigration.

The plaque  reads in part, “THE FIRST SWEDISH COLONISTS OF MAINE REACHED THIS SPOT IN THE WILD WOODS AT NOON JULY 23, 1870. THE COLONY NUMBERED 22 MEN, 11 WOMEN AND 17 CHILDREN. 50 SOULS IN ALL.”

In 2003 the town endured a shocking crime: the largest mass poisoning in U.S. history. One person died, fifteen others became ill from arsenic placed in the coffee at the historic Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church on Sunday, April 27th. The nearby Cary Medical Center provided treatment for seventeen church members.

Shortly thereafter, a church member who had not attended the church service, committed suicide and, in a suicide note released in 2006, admitted he had tampered with the coffee not realizing its lethal potential.

Just northwest of Caribou on Maine Route 161, the town is just south of Stockholm.

Additional resources

Cedarleaf, Wallace E. New Sweden, Maine: A Noble Experiment. New Sweden, Me. New Sweden Historical Society. 1994. [Maine State Library]

Celebration of the Decennial Anniversary of the Founding of New Sweden, Maine, July 23, 1880.  Portland, Me. B. Thurston, Printers. 1881.

Hede, Richard. ed., Centennial History of Maine’s Swedish Colony: New Sweden, Westmanland, Stockholm and Adjoining Areas. Stockholm, Me. 1970.

Letters From the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914. Minneapolis, MN. Published by the University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society. 1975.

Malmquist, Marie. Lapptäcke. New Sweden, Me. The Author? 1928-9. University of Maine at Presque Isle. Library and Learning Resource Center.

Silver Birches: Preserving Cultural Heritage by Learning from Earlier Generations. New Sweden, Me. [published by residents of New Sweden, Stockholm, and Westmanland, Maine] 1981. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections; University of Maine at Farmington, Mantor Library]

Stadig, Rita B. Rita Stadig Collection, 1900-2009.  (Cataloger Note: A variety of papers and photographs pertaining to the Stadig family and the history of the St. John Valley. The materials cover topics such as the lumber industry, Sweden and the Swedish colony of Aroostook County, World War II and the Fish River; Fort Kent, Wallagrass, and Madawaska are also represented by items in the collection.) [University of Maine at Fort Kent, Blake Library]