Limerick (pronounced "LIM-rick") is a town in York County, Maine, United States.

[2] This was territory of the Newichewannock Abenaki Indians, whose village was located on the Salmon Falls River.

In 1668, Francis Small of Kittery, a trader, bought from Chief Captain Sunday (or Wesumbe) a large tract of land, for which he exchanged two blankets, two gallons of rum, two pounds of gunpowder, four pounds of musket balls and twenty strings of beads.

Small thereupon sold half of his interest to Major Nicholas Shapleigh of Eliot, one of the wealthiest merchants in the Piscataqua region.

[3] Settlement was delayed, however, by the ongoing French and Indian Wars, which finally ended with the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

In 1773, the heirs of Francis Small and Nicholas Shapleigh promised a township to lawyer James Sullivan of Biddeford if he defended their larger claims.

Endowed with good soil, Limerick became a thriving farming community.

In addition, the town had four blacksmith shops, four shoemakers, two hatmakers, two harness makers and three tanneries.

In 1826 the Morning Star, a Free Will Baptist abolitionist newspaper, was founded in the town.

In 1846, James Bradbury established the Limerick Manufacturing Company at Brown Brook.

The firm produced the nationally famous Holland Blankets, which were supplied to troops during the Civil War.