Similar to Bar Harbor, Nantucket and North Haven, Camden is well known for its summer community of wealthy Northeasterners, mostly from Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia.

They called it Megunticook, meaning "great swells of the sea", a reference to the silhouette of the Camden Hills (more visibly seen on a bright night).

[3] When Castine was held by the British in 1779 after the military loss of the Penobscot expedition, Camden became a rendezvous point and encampment for the Americans, who were commanded by Major George Ulmer.

By 1886, the town also made foundry products, railroad cars, woolens and paper mill feltings, anchors, wedges, plugs and treenails, planking, powder kegs, excelsior, mattresses, powder, tinware, oakum, wool rolls, boots and shoes, leather, flour and meal, corn brooms and barrels.

Camden was second only to nearby Rockland in the lucrative manufacture of lime, excavated at quarries and processed in kilns before being shipped to various ports around the United States until 1891, when Rockport was set off as a separate town.

As the 19th century came to an end, Camden was very much a shipbuilding town with the H.M. Bean Yard launching the largest four-masted schooner Charlotte A. Maxwell and the first six-master ever built-the George W.

[5] In the 1880s, sportsmen and "rusticators," began to discover the natural beauty of Camden during the summer and autumn, becoming seasonal residents.

Thereafter, the summer colony at Camden quickly grew to include some of the wealthiest, most prominent families in the country.

Local residents, who had formerly gone to sea to earn a living, found jobs as caretakers, gardeners, cooks and carpenters to the rich and powerful.

In 1898, a group of wealthy summer residents from Philadelphia established the Megunticook Golf Club on Beauchamp Point.

And in 1901, the Whitehall Inn opened on High Street in an old mansion built by a sea captain, catering to a well-to-do clientele.

Around the turn of the century families such as Curtis, Bok, Keep, Gribbel, Dillingham and Borland not only built estates but their donations resulted in the public library, the amphitheatre, which was designed by Fletcher Steele, the Camden Harbor Park, which was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, the Village Green, and the Camden Opera House.

The Philadelphia publishing tycoon, Cyrus Curtis, maintained a summer home and several yachts in Camden.

In 1936 the cruise schooner business was started by Captain Frank Swift and the windjammer fleet continues to this day.

After graduating from Vassar, she went on to write poetry and plays that made her one of the most famous women in America and an inspiration for the Roaring Twenties, winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Theatre productions at the Opera House and Shakespeare in the Amphitheatre enriched the lives of residents and summer visitors for generations.

During the second weekend of February, the annual U.S. National Toboggan Championships are held at the town-owned Camden Snow Bowl.

This nationally known race started as a lark for something to do during the long Maine winters, and more than 20 years later is one of New England's premier cold-weather events.

The iced chute is 400 feet (120 m) long, and the four-man teams attain speeds of up to 35 miles (56 km) an hour.

Most racers arrive in costume, and 100% percent of race revenue is used to offset operating expenses for this recreation area.

[1] Drained by the Megunticook River, Camden is located beside Penobscot Bay and the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean.