Yarmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, twelve miles north of the state's largest city, Portland. When originally settled in 1636, as North Yarmouth, it was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and remained part of its subsequent incarnations for 213 years. In 1849, twenty-nine years after Maine's admittance to the Union as the twenty-third state, it was incorporated as the Town of Yarmouth. Yarmouth is part of the Portland–South Portland-Biddeford Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town's population was 8,990 in the 2020 census. The town's proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, and its location on the banks of the Royal River (formerly Yarmouth River), which empties into Casco Bay less than one mile away, means it is a prime location as a harbor. Ships were built in Yarmouth's harbor mainly between 1818 and the 1870s, at which point demand declined dramatically. Meanwhile, the Royal River's four waterfalls within Yarmouth, whose Main Street sits about above sea level, resulted in the foundation of almost sixty mills between 1674 and 1931. The annual Yarmouth Clam Festival attracts around 120,000 people (around fourteen times the town’s population) over the course of the three-day weekend. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which (58%) is land and (42%) is water. Yarmouth is nearly square in form and is bisected by the Royal River. The town is bounded by Freeport to the north (with the Cousins River separating them), North Yarmouth to the northeast, Cumberland to the west and Casco Bay to the south. Also included as part of the town are Cousins Island, Lanes Island, Great and Little Moshier Islands, and Littlejohn Island. Waterfalls The Royal River appealed to settlers because its four waterfalls and 45-foot rise within a mile of navigable water each provided potential waterpower sites. In October 1674, the first sawmill, of Englishman Henry Sayward and Colonel Bartholomew Gedney, was built on the eastern (East Main Street) side of the First Falls, by present-day Lafayette Street. (It was abandoned two years later, however, due to conflicts with the Native Americans during the early stages of King Philip's War.) Sayward, who had arrived from England in 1637, had previously built a saw mill in York, Maine, but it burned in 1669, and he lost about $3,500. The Second Falls are just above the Sparhawk Mill, on Bridge Street; the Third