Lincolnville is a town in Maine's Waldo County. The date of the first European settlement in the area is unknown, but the earliest dated artifact found in Lincolnville was some fragments of a clay pipe made between 1650 and 1660, probably for trade with the Penobscot Indians, indicating that a civilization existed there, either Native tribes or European settlers, during that era. The first recorded permanent settlers in the Lincolnville area were Nathan and Lydia Chamberlain Knight, who built a log cabin overlooking the stretches of Norton and Coleman Pond in 1770. The first school in Lincolnville was a three-sided log cabin with a perpendicular ledge rather for a fourth wall, which served to support a blackboard. The school was located behind Nathan Knight's home. Lincolnville was incorporated on June 23, 1802 from Canaan and Ducktrap Plantations, and named for Enoch Lincoln, a Revolutionary War general and early proprietor of the region.
Located on U.S. Route 1 and Penobscot Bay, Lincolnville hosts the Maine State Ferry Service mainland terminal for the ferry to Islesboro, three miles out in the middle of the bay. Camden Hills State Park, with access to Mount Battie overlooking Camden Harbor, is just north of the main village on Route 1, and the Fernald's Neck Preserve, partly in Camden, and managed by the Nature Conservancy, covers 315 acres of a peninsula jutting into Lake Megunticook.