New Gloucester is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area.

The first settlers followed the road newly bushed out from North Yarmouth and built cabins on Harris Hill between 1739 and 1742.

The settlement was abandoned from 1744–1751 due to the heightened native tribe attacks during King George's War.

[4] Settlers returned and in 1753 commenced work on a two-story, fifty-foot square blockhouse with a palisade stockade 110 feet (34 m) on a side.

The men worked at clearing the surrounding 60 acres (240,000 m2) of common land under the protection of two swivel guns manned by a garrison of six soldiers.

As the Native Americans gradually withdrew to Canada, the settlers moved out into their own newly built homes.

The blockhouse continued to serve for worship and town affairs until the first meetinghouse was built in 1773.

In 1788, the blockhouse was sold at auction for seven bushels of corn and moved to a farm in the Intervale, where it was rebuilt as a hog house.

[7] Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village was founded in 1783 by the United Society of True Believers at what was then called Thompson's Pond Plantation.

Today, the village is the last of some over two-dozen religious societies, stretching from Maine to Florida, to be operated by the Shakers themselves.

It is bordered by the town of Raymond to the west, Poland to the northwest, the city of Auburn to the northeast, Durham to the east, Pownal and North Yarmouth to the southeast, and Gray to the southwest.

The privately owned, unattended Cliff Dow Airport is located on Highview Drive, two miles southwest of New Gloucester, to the east of Interstate 95.