North Haven is a town and island in Knox County, Maine, United States, in Penobscot Bay.

[2] North Haven is accessible by thrice-daily state ferry service from Rockland, or by air taxi from Knox County Regional Airport.

Later it became part of the territory of the Penobscot Abenaki Indians, who hunted and fished in canoes along the coast.

Captain Martin Pring, an explorer from Bristol, England, "discovered" North Haven and Vinalhaven in 1603.

In 1850, the state legislature passed an act that gave the majority of island inhabitants "the right to have such roads as they deemed fit."

[4] In the 1880s, the island was discovered by "rusticators", seasonal residents first from Boston, then a decade or two later from New York and Philadelphia.

North Haven is best known today for its sizable summer colony of prominent northeasterners, particularly Boston Brahmins, drawn to the island for over a century to savor its simple way of life.

[3] Among the more notable summer residents was the impressionist painter Frank Weston Benson, who rented the Wooster Farm as a summer home and painted several notable canvases set on the island.

In contrast to Vinalhaven, North Haven's economy relies less on the lobster industry and more on sustaining its summer resort community.

Energy for the community is partially provided by the wind project in Vinalhaven through the Fox Island Electric Cooperative.

A small population of Mouflon sheep (native to Europe and western Asia) escaped from an animal enclosure owned by Thomas Watson, Jr. on the island in the 1990s and some of the original population survives today.

He used the tender from his yacht Gitana and unsuccessfully raced against a variety of sprit-sailed boats.

The boat was hauled out at North Haven, and two copies were made by Henry Calderwood.

Notable alumni include Hannah Pingree, who served as Maine's Speaker of the House of Representatives for two terms.