View source for York County, Massachusetts

{{Short description|Former county in Massachusetts, United States}}
{{Historical populations
|type= USA
|1650|1000
|1760|20000
|footnote=Source: 1650 & 1760<ref name="Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics">{{cite web|title=Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|page=1168|url=https://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p2-13.pdf}}</ref>
}}

'''Yorkshire County, Massachusetts''' was a county in what is now the U.S. state of [[Maine]].

Yorkshire County was established in 1652 to include the area of the proprietary province of [[Lygonia]] when the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] first asserted territorial claims over the settlements in the southern parts of the [[Province of Maine]], extending from the [[Piscataqua River]] to just east of the mouth of the [[Presumpscot River]] in [[Casco Bay]]. The county eventually grew to encompass effectively all of present-day State of Maine, although the interior was claimed by various [[Abenaki people]]s, and the territory east of [[Penobscot Bay]] was claimed (and partly occupied) as part of French [[Acadia]]. Massachusetts Bay Colony renamed Yorkshire County, Massachusetts to York County, Massachusetts in 1668. However, the land east of the Kennebec River was claimed and sometimes administered as [[Cornwall County, Province of New York]] from September 5, 1665. It was temporarily turned over to the newly established [[Dominion of New England]] in 1687 until 1689 when the D.N.E. was disestablished. By 1760, most of the Abenaki had either been wiped out or retreated northward toward the [[Saint Lawrence River]], and [[New France]] had been conquered in the [[French and Indian War]].

The large size of the county led to its division in 1760, with [[Cumberland County, Maine|Cumberland]] and [[Lincoln County, Maine|Lincoln]] counties carved out of its eastern portions.

== Formation with Maine ==
When the 1780 [[Constitution of Massachusetts]] was adopted, the state created the [[District of Maine]] to manage its eastern territories. In 1805, the northern portion of York County was separated to form part of [[Oxford County, Maine|Oxford County]].

When Maine achieved statehood in 1820, all of the counties of the District of Maine became [[List of counties in Maine|counties of Maine]]. The remainder of York County became [[York County, Maine]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=-e8gAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22york+county%22+massachusetts&pg=PA68 ''History of York County, Maine'']

{{Massachusetts}}

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[[Category:Cumberland County, Maine]]
[[Category:Former counties of the United States]]
[[Category:Former counties of Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Former regions and territories of the United States]]
[[Category:Lincoln County, Maine]]
[[Category:York County, Maine]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Maine]]
[[Category:Exclaves in the United States]]
[[Category:Former exclaves]]
[[Category:1652 establishments in the Massachusetts Bay Colony]]
[[Category:17th-century establishments in Maine]]

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