[2] It includes the neighborhoods of Bayville, Mount Pisgah, and Sprucewold, and the villages of Isle of Springs and West Boothbay Harbor.

During summer months, the entire Boothbay Harbor region is a popular yachting and tourist destination.

[3] The first European presence in the region was an English fishing outpost called Cape Newagen in 1623.

An Englishman by the name of Henry Curtis purchased the right to settle Winnegance from the Abenaki Sachem Mowhotiwormet in 1666.

[4] In 1730, Colonel David Dunbar, the superintendent and governor of the Territory of Sagadahock, formed a new settlement, named Townsend after Lord Charles Townshend.

During the Penobscot Expedition in 1779, Boothbay became a rendezvous point for the American naval fleet prior to its disastrous encounter with the British at Castine.

In bad weather, it could hold at a time between 400 and 500 vessels, often Friendship Sloops, seeking shelter.

[6] Frank L. Sample shipyard at Boothbay Harbor built minesweepers for the United States Navy during World War II and into the 1950s.

[7] Some location filming for the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, notably the "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" sequence, was done there.

Attractions include the state aquarium, art galleries, restaurants, boat tours to coastal islands and whale watching.

The town is in southern Lincoln County, at the south end of a peninsula in the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean.

The town center sits at the north end of Boothbay Harbor, which joins Linekin Bay to the south, past Spruce Point.

Townsend Gut, to the southwest, separates the town of Boothbay Harbor from Southport Island.